The case of Telengana, in retrospect, will dishearten the Congress the most, for only two years ago its success in the assembly elections had taken the sting out of the demand for a separate state. Under the leadership of the popular Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the Congress won 156 seats in the 294-member House with 36.5 per cent of the votes while Rao’s Telengana Rashtra Samithi won a mere 10 seats with 3.9 per cent votes. The latter, therefore, was believed to be fading out.

But, then, fate intervened. First, YSR died in a helicopter crash in September, 2009, and two months later, in December, Rao went on a fast in support of his demand for a separate state. Considering that the ruthlessness with which the Centre has dealt with Irom Sharmila in Manipur by force-feeding her for a decade, its loss of nerve over Rao’s hunger strike is difficult to understand. The government was apparently so flustered by the possibility of Rao’s death that home minister P. Chidambaram hastily announced the acceptance of his demand.

Since Hyderabad is not Imphal, the government could not describe Rao’s fast as an attempt to commit suicide and force feed him as it has done in the case of the civil rights activist of Manipur. But it could have enlisted the help of other parties as well as sundry godmen to persuade the TRS leader to desist from resorting to such an extreme measure. Instead, by first conceding his demand and then backpedalling furiously to extricate itself from the promise by setting up a commission to examine the issue, the government showed that it simply did not have the political skills to deal with a sensitive issue with a long history.

Although the same political ineptness was evident from the government’s dealings with Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, the issues raised by them had moral and legislative implications and not political and territorial. Besides, Hazare and Co seem to have become confused over their tactics considering that they have now reached out to politicians after calling them liars and cheats. However, even if the government has succeeding in staving off the challenge from the civil society activists for the time being by roping in the opposition, the Lokpal issue is no longer under its control.

In all probability, the opposition will now play a much larger role in determining the parameters of the proposed bill. As such, the Congress will either have to concede ground on some key points, such as the prime minister’s inclusion in the Lokpal’s ambit, or depend on parties which are not its allies, like the AIADMK and the Akali Dal, to bail it out on this matter. But if the civil society has been unable to have it all its own way on the Lokpal bill, this isn’t true of the Telengana issue where the Congress is very much on the retreat.

What is more, its clumsy handling of the matter has been compounded by its failure to check the revolt of YSR’s ambitious son, Jagan Mohan, who has formed his own party, the YSR Congress, and won a by-election along with his mother in his stronghold of Kadapa by a huge margin to demoralize his former party. The consequent weakening of the Congress has evidently emboldened the TRS and the BJP to step up their drive for a separate state. The resignations of Congress MPs and MLAs have added to the momentum of their agitation.

The movement is evidently gathering pace in a manner when it will be extremely difficult for the government to defuse the demand for Telengana. A stage has been reached when even YSR himself, for all his popularity, might not have been able to save the situation for the Congress. Unfortunately, there is no one like him in the party in Andhra Pradesh. For all practical purposes, the Congress seems more bureaucratic than political in its outlook and activities.

It is also possible that its will and determination to face a challenge of this nature with divisive implications for the entire country has been sapped by the scams which overwhelmed it and made it vulnerable to jeers from the aam admi and constant sniping from the opposition. Once Telengana is conceded, the demands for a separate Darjeeling, Vidarbha and other mini-states will be nearly impossible to resist. (IPA Service)