Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: February 13, 2014
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2014/02/13/no-one-but-congress-is-to-blame-for-telangana-crisis-189865.html

The fierce resistance of Andhra Pradesh MPs to the tabling of the AP Reorganisation Bill, 2013 to bifurcate India’s first linguistic State assumed a new dimension with the use of pepper spray and possibly the flashing of a knife (vehemently denied) within the hallowed precincts of the Lok Sabha. This incident resulted in the Speaker and four MPs being rushed to the hospital even as Parliament had to be adjourned. As many as 18 MPs, including YS Jaganmohan Reddy, have been suspended from the House, an issue that will not perturb them unduly as the Election Commission will soon declare the schedule of the Parliamentary election.

Meanwhile, YS Jaganmohan Reddy, whose YSR Congress is vehemently opposed to the bifurcation, has challenged the Bill, which is being deemed as introduced by the Speaker as the chaos in the House did not permit voting by ‘Ayes’ and ‘Nos’ and no papers were tabled. This is also the view of the BJP, SP, BJD, the CPI(M) and the TMC, whose leaders met Speaker Meira Kumar to convey the same. For now, the only way out of the maze, as suggested by BJP veteran LK Advani, is for the UPA to retreat, go in for the vote-on-account and pave the way for fresh elections.

Responsibility for Thursday’s shocking turn of events lies solely with the Congress, whose own Andhra MPs and MLAs, including Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, were vehemently opposed to the move. Whatever the merits of the bifurcation, the Telangana issue has been seriously mishandled by the UPA from the very beginning. Without any serious homework or preparation, the then Home Minister P Chidambaram suddenly made a midnight announcement on Sonia Gandhi’s birthday, December 8, 2009, that the separate State would be created. He later backtracked a bit saying that much remained to be done in the matter, but thereafter the UPA did little or nothing.

On Thursday, when the lame duck regime made it clear that it would somehow or other table the Bill in the Lok Sabha (this was after Vice-President Hamid Ansari refused permission to table the Bill in the Rajya Sabha on account of it having financial implications), trouble was only to be expected. It bears recalling that Andhra Pradesh was created only after Potti Sriramulu fasted unto death to force the division of Telugu-speaking areas from the then Madras Presidency. This time too, legislators had threatened to immolate themselves. Hence it was no surprise when Telugu Desam Party MP K Narayana Rao collapsed in the House after apparently consuming something and had to be rushed to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

Three other MPs needed medical attention after L Rajagopalan launched a pepper spray attack in which he was also injured. Speaker Meira Kumar was rushed home as she felt the effects of the pepper spray in her office connected to the House, as did many journalists in the balcony above. TDP MP Venugopal Reddy claimed that the ‘knife’ in his hand was a mike broken off the Secretary General’s table; the glass on the table was smashed by L Rajagopalan.

Back in Andhra Pradesh, three MLAs, Adala Prabhakar Reddy and Sridhar Krishna Reddy (of Nellore district) and B Satyananda Rao (East Godavari), have resigned from the Congress to protest against the move to divide the State. Others from Seemandhra are expected to follow as on February 11, the Congress expelled six Lok Sabha MPs from the Seemandhra region for giving notices of No Confidence Motion against the UPA Government. On Wednesday, February 12, even Central Ministers had moved into the well of the House to force adjournment on this contentious issue, forcing the Prime Minister to express sadness at the turn of events.

There is no denying that the Congress has seriously mishandled the entire episode. As the issue now seems postponed for the present, it may be pertinent to recall that in July 2013, the UPA set up the Antony Committee to look into the grievances of all sections of the State; but the Committee never visited the non-Telengana region at all. Till date, it is not known if the Antony Committee made a report; if it did, the report was never made public. However, suddenly in October 2013, the Union Cabinet passed a note regarding the division of the State. The Congress also claimed that till 2008, both the TDP and YSR Congress supported a separate Telengana, and changed their minds later.

Opponents of a separate Telangana point out that the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi firmly opposed division in 1972 on the grounds that every State and every region within a State has areas that are relatively backward and relatively advanced. She said alleged backwardness is no criteria for division because if States are divided on this basis, the process would go on till each district was separate.

United Andhra proponents say that there is logic in unity because the different regions of the State have been integrated economically and socially since its formation in 1953, a phenomenon strengthened by the post-globalisation economy. That is why, when power sector employees went on strike to protest the proposed bifurcation, this crippled the electricity supply in all regions in the State capital Hyderabad and especially hurt farmers in Telengana. The neighbouring States of Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were also hit. Justice Srikrishna Committee established the veracity of more or less equal development and under-development in all regions, and effectively debunked the rationale for a separate State.

With India having made a spectacle of itself before the international community, the Congress owes the nation an explanation for trying the ram the Bill down the nation’s throat even after the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly voted against bifurcation by full majority on January 30, 2014. Knowing the emotive character of the people, having received threats of immolation, the ruling dynasty cannot pretend ignorance of the issue’s potential for violence in the State and in the Capital. Yet it proceeded on its predetermined path with cavalier lack of concern for consequences.