Parties must take a call on Telangana

The Telangana JAC, the umbrella organisation of various associations of teachers, workers, employees, doctors and lawyers, which had won accolades for spearheading such an unprecedented agitation, suddenly came in for a sharp criticism from all fronts for failing to give a proper direction to the striking Telangana people. JAC chairman Prof M Kodandaram was under attack for giving the strike call without proper planning, thereby causing inconvenience to the Telangana people, particularly students belonging to weaker sections.

The Telangana Rasthra Samithi, which is the leading partner in the JAC, had to bear the brunt the attacks. Its political opponents, particularly the Telugu Desam Party, tried to establish that the TRS president K Chandrasekhara Rao had forced the abrupt ending of the strike as a quid pro quo gesture to the state government awarding Rs. 4,700-crore contract for Polavaram major irrigation project works to C L Rajam, a business partner of KCR in Namasthe Telangana Telugu daily, the mouthpiece of the TRS. The TDP leaders thus alleged that the TRS president had used the strike only to blackmail the Congress government in the state and the Centre and dumped the movement after getting the benefits. Another analyst observed that the strike was a big drama enacted by the Centre with the help of the TRS to divert the people’s attention from crucial issues like the 2-G spectrum scam and Anna Hazare’s agitation.

On the positive side, the strike has definitely achieved its desired goal of creating tremors in the Centre, which had been dodging the Telangana issue in the name of consultations. The Congress high command has realised that the time has come to take some decision on the statehood issue, as the people of Telangana highlighted their demand in one voice with this strike. For the first time, the employees, teachers and workers went on strike not for their personal benefits, but for the Telangana cause. And if they called off the strike midway, the blame should go to the political leaders, who had pushed the employees into the ocean and watched their struggle from the shore. Basically, the Telangana statehood issue has to be resolved through a political process and the initiative has to be taken by the political parties.

The employees and workers can only supplement the efforts of the political parties with their strike, but they cannot carry the struggle on their shoulders indefinitely. After all, it is a question of their survival and that of the people depending on them. They cannot paralyse the administration forever. Apparently realising this, the JAC has changed its strategy. While it has come out with a new slogan – “Congress hatao, Telangana lao,” (Defeat Congress and bring Telangana), KCR has started luring the Congress MLAs and MPs into the TRS. In the last couple days, three Congress MLAs jumped into the TRS and at least another five MLAs and two MPs are likely to follow suit, pushing the Kiran government into minority. In the long run, it would spell doom for the Congress in the Telangana region.

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