Realty nosedives, blackouts, cancellation of trains add to misery.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: Large swathes of Andhra Pradesh was crippled by protests, bandhs and shutdowns, creating enormous pain and suffering to people living there, not to mention economic losses over the creation of India’s 29th state Telangana, today.
The Telangana episode is fast becoming a gauntlet around the Congress party, the key component of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Critics have begun lambasting the Congress for the current state of affairs that is being witnessed after a formal announcement last week of the decision to create India’s newest state which has been carved out of Andhra Pradesh.
The raging violence and civil war like situation in the state, protesting the bifurcation has been attributed to short-sighted political management and an unseemly haste to rush into a decision without tying up the loose ends. The Congress appears to have acted in haste even though it is fully aware that elections are around the corner and the party’s stand that it had got the assent of YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy and the Telugu Desam Party’s leader Chandrababu Naidu on the decision smacks of extreme naiveté. Both the leaders are on a fast to get the decision reversed. The controversial decision could well have been deferred for a while more, political observers against the bifurcation move point out.
The Congress also hoped to pick up seats in the Telangana region (about 17 Lok Sabha seats) and even get the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which had been agitating for a separate state, on board. But the TRS leader K. Chandrashekhar Rao, true to form, has already begun creating trouble by saying that people from Seemandhra are not welcome in the future Telangana state, putting the Congress in a further bind.
On Monday, the second day of protests, most of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions remained in darkness and several trains were cancelled, with electricity employees on strike amid continuing protests against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Former chief minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu brought his fight against bifurcation of the state to the national capital where he has begun an indefinite hunger strike. The Center appealed to people to create an environment for a healthy dialogue process and assured that an amicable solution that safeguards interests of all will be found for Andhra Pradesh. The appeal by Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde came even as curfew remained in place in violence-hit Vizianagaram town — the epicenter of the protests in support of “United Andhra”. Curfew and shoot at sight orders was clamped on Saturday night.
Normal life in all 13 districts of Seemandhra, as Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra are together known, has come to a halt. Shops, businesses, transport and educational institutions were closed in all towns. Opposing the state’s division, protestors took to the streets forcing closure of hotels and shops and burning tires on main roads. They erected road blocks on state and national highways, halting all traffic. Vehicular traffic from and to the neighboring states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Odisha has come to halt.
While buses of the state-owned transport corporation are off the roads for nearly two months due to the indefinite strike by employees, private vehicles were also taken off due to the shutdown, causing hardships to commuters. More than six lakh government employees, teachers and workers are on strike since August 13th. Their leader P. Ashok Babu threatened to intensify the strike. The Telugu film industry too has taken a massive hit with releases of several big ticket releases postponed indefinitely. According to a report on Mint, two films – each worth over Rs. 50 crore – have not been able to hit the screens following the stir.
“Two big-budget films among them have a common link—tourism minister K. Chiranjeevi. One is Yevadu, a Rs.50-crore production starring Chiranjeevi’s son Ram Charan Teja, and the other is Attarintiki Daaredi—made on a budget of Rs.55 crore—which stars the actor-turned-politician’s brother Pavan Kalyan.” A report on the Hindu BusinessLine pegs the daily loss incurred by the Andhra Pradesh government transport system following the outbreak of protests at Rs 10 crores. They have reportedly lost Rs 300 crore as revenue till date.
Daily wage laborers and small and medium scale enterprises in the districts falling under Seemandhra too have taken a big hit. BusinessLine reports: “Realty, which was recovering, has been hit hard, with hardly any registration of property or sales. Home loans have dropped by 20 per cent and the daily wage earners and petty traders are bearing the brunt. Small-scale industrial units in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Kakinada, Rajahmundry and other towns have suffered considerable losses, as the transport of material has been affected due to frequent bandhs.”
In protest, HRD minister MM Pallam Raju, tourism minister K Chiranjeevi, minister of state for commerce D Purandeswari and minister of state for railways Surya Prakash Reddy, all Congress leaders, met Singh together to press for acceptance of their resignations. They decided not to attend office.
But now that the ruling UPA has committed to giving Telangana its state-hood tag it must manage a clean break, with minimal inconvenience for citizens of either side. Seemandhra is a term sometimes used to refer to the combined regions of Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra in Andhra Pradesh. The term came into wide use during the Telangana movement, as a way to refer to the parts of Andhra Pradesh that would remain after the separation of Telengana. Seemandhra corresponds to the area of Andhra State which existed in between 1953 and 1956, and was merged with the Telangana region to form current state of Andhra Pradesh in 1956.
On July 30th, 2013, the ruling Congress Party announced its intention to carve Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh as the 29th state of India. Hyderabad will be the common capital of Telangana and Seemandhra for 10 years.
“Is it justifiable to split the state without any assembly resolution in place? I don’t understand – a city that has taken 60 years to build to come this far – you are asking us to leave it in 10 years. In protest, I’m on an indefinite fast,” Jaganmohan Reddy, Chief, YSR Congress reacted on Saturday.
Those upset members of the party accused the Congress of doing injustice to the Telugu people and even praised BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Will the Congress be able to prevent the crisis from heading to a point of no return? “Someone wanted the son to become a PM and bifurcated Telangana,” Jagan said, adding, “Just for 16-17 seats, how can they play with the future of lakhs of people in a state.”
Meanwhile, Seemandhra legislators met CM Kiran Kumar Reddy. It has been decided they will not resign and will try to defeat the bifurcation move in the assembly. The central government meanwhile is going ahead with the formalities of drafting the Telangana Bill. The groups of ministers aim to draft a bill in 6 weeks dividing resources, personnel and border of Andhra Pradesh. Home Minister Shinde, says: “Our colleagues have expressed their concerns. We have to take them into confidence and try our level best. Such feelings during bifurcation are normal. But we have to console them.”
Supporters of the Congress here say that the grand old party has backed the formation of the new state after carefully considering the consequences in a bid to redeem its prestige after the embarrassing December 2009 volte face and to capture pole position in one of Andhra’s regions. The choice, as an observer put it, was between a possible 17 seats and drawing a blank.
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