andhra pradesh politics, k chandrasekhara rao

[What if KCR loses in Palamur?]

What if KCR loses in Palamur?
K Chandrasekhar Rao is the Sarah Palin of this election. He does some unconventional things as a maverick is wont to do. But his move to Mahbubnagar LS in preference to his patrimony of Medak and Karimnagar, his maike, has perplexed his allies and enemies alike. He left Medak to Vijayashanti because she threw a tantrum, but his sacrifice of Karimnagar is inexplicable. After all, he won two challenging byelections there.

Mahbubnagar is not TRS territory. Of all the Telangana districts, the Telangana sentiment is weakest in Mahbubnagar and Khammam. Of the seven Assembly segments in this constituency, the TRS does not hold even one. It won Jadcherla in 2004, but lost it to the Congress in the tetchy byelection of 2008. In Mahbubnagar Assembly in 2004, it mustered 6000 votes to finish third while an Independent Puli Veeranna walked away with the seat.

So why has KCR moved to Mahbubnagar?

The gifted speaker has offered different explanations on different days: first it was the call of his heart, then it was the command of his guru, Prof. K Jayashankar. Both are bunkum.

On the third day of his campaign, some 200 people turned up in Kodangal to hear KCR’s speech. At any Mahakutami meeting in this district, you see more yellow than pink in the crowd, which points to an incontrovertible fact: KCR can win only if the TDP vote goes to him. That is a fair enough proposition, but it also sets up the alluring possibility of an ambush by the redoubtable vennupotu artist, Chandrababu Naidu.

What if Naidu, whom we know as a very, very reluctant Telangana separatist, decides to wreck the Telangana movement from within by having KCR defeated in Mahbubnagar? What would that mean to the potency of the movement the Panther claims to have built?

But then, KCR walked into it with his eyes open. This raises an even more startling question. Is that what KCR wants after all?

Mahbubnagar was the theatre of Chandrababu Naidu’s failed vision. It bore the brunt of his neglect as his head was turned by the field of dreams he was building in Hyderabad barely 100 km away. Migration, endemic here, left this place a shell. At the height of the Great Distress of 2003, more people were away than home. Today, a chastened Naidu is back to seek votes for an ally he does not trust, for a movement he yielded to only at the point of a gun. What picture will he cut to the voters of Mahbubnagar? Will he resist the temptation to plunge that dagger into his ally’s back?

It was for places like Mahbubnagar Jean Dreze and his associates designed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It guarantees a minimum of 100 days of work to registered landless worker, delivers the remuneration to his post office account and pegs the wage higher than what a contractor looking for cheap migrant workers would be able to pay. The NREGS is lauded even by its critics as an example of welfare delivery\

The Congress government of YS Rajasekhara Reddy says the NREGS is working in Mahbubnagar: the number of migrant buses leaving this town are fewer, the number of school enrolments is higher and Jalayagnam projects are keeping registered workers occupied. There is evidence of a basis to these claims. That would make the NREGS the second biggest threat to KCR’s chances of winning this election, the first being the man by his side.

If course there are some local issues that will aid his campaign. The most important of them is the displacement caused by the Polepally Special Economic Zone (SEZ). About 15 of the farmers ousted by this 1000-acre SEZ are in the fray as spoilers in this election, as they were in the 2008 byelection in Jadcherla. They garnered about 5000 votes together.

KCR’s third biggest worry is the incumbent D Vittal Rao of the Congress, winner against the TDP in a straight fight in 2004. His margin was not big, but then they never have been in this constituency. The important factor in Vittal Rao’s favour is that he carried all the seven Assembly segments in 2004.

Mahbubnagar is a district capable of surprises. A reputation for guile and gumption count for little here. KCR will remember his mentor NTR lost to a novice here in the 1994 Assembly election.