While Telengana activists have planned a “Maha Parighatna” after June 28, if by chance the Centre does not announce a bifurcation with Hyderabad as capital of the new state, the Seemandhra Congress leaders, stoutly opposed to disintegration, have warned the Central leaders of a violent backlash in the rest of Andhra Pradesh.

Forces of law and order have already been alerted by the Central and State Governments to maintain peace following an announcement on the future of Andhra Pradesh, in order to forestall a possible re-run of widespread violence and disorder that followed a hasty, ill-conceived pronouncement in favour of Telengana on December 9, 2009, by the then Home Minister Mr Chidambaram.

Telengana looms large in the ‘Chintan Shivir’ on January 18 and 19 at Jaipur where the top Congress leaders will go through an agonising reappraisal of where the ruling party at the Centre stands ahead of 2014 elections, after UPA’s governance failures and electoral setbacks over the last three and a half years. The emerging prospects for the Congress in different states with or without alliances will be assessed with the countdown for 2014 having begun.

The Seemandhra leaders who had converged in Delhi were reportedly asked by one of the AICC leaders in charge of Andhra affairs as to how many Lok Sabha seats they could promise if there is no bifurcation while Telengana Congress had promised 16 out of 17 seats there. But the confidence of Seemandhra leaders to win “sufficient number” of seats was not shared by AICC spokesmen. These leaders would get back to Delhi to reiterate their opposition to the break-up of a united Andhra Pradesh. They are undecided about future course of action.

Chief Minister Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy, who has been actively touring the state and launching a series of new schemes including food security and right to services --- the first of its kind at state level – is also strengthening his governance and is even more confident that the Congress would gain absolute majority in the 2014 elections, whatever the decisions that are taken vis-à-vis Telengana. Increasingly, he has been relied upon by the central leadership and is no longer dubbed as an under-achiever. Mr K K Reddy has been made an active participant in the ongoing discussions in New Delhi both over the future of the state and on tiding over any threats to law and order in the wake of whatever decision is finally announced.

The Congress Core Committee, which has held a series of meetings is yet to give final shape to a Telengana announcement and questions remain whether it would become a full-fledged state, whether Hyderabad would be made a Union Territory and/or a shared capital for Telengana and rest of Andhra Pradesh. One move was also on inclusion of Kadapa district in Telengana in order to limit Mr Jaganmohan Reddy’s influence over the region.

Mr Jaganmohan Reddy remains in jail since May 2012 with a series of cases of illegal accumulation of wealth foisted on him by CBI and his remand in custody has been repeatedly extended before trial could begin. That has made no difference to his popularity among the people with YSR Congress currently headed by Ms. Y S Vijayamma, wife of late Chief Minister.

In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress which secured 33 Lok Sabha seats in 2009 LS elections, the highest for any state, will have to battle hard in a salvage operation in order to be able to retain power in the State and bag the maximum possible number of seats at the Centre. While it may be confident of a majority in Telengana if it is decided finally to bifurcate AP, the Congress will be up against both the powerful YSR Congress as well as Mr Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam (TDP) in Rayalaseema and Coastal regions. And both these parties may gain in strength if unhappy Seemandhra Congress MLAs walk over to either of them.

Mr Chandrababu Naidu, leader of the TDP opposition in the Assembly, has been on a ‘padayatra’ since October 2 and hopes his party’s declared support for Telengana would keep TDP in the region safe. His party, which ruled the state for some years, has a wider base and Mr Naidu, who earned reputation as a reformer in office, is desperately struggling to come back to power. Mr Naidu has been making extravagant offers of free power, write-off of farmers loans, and all kinds of welfare schemes.

Mr Naidu would have covered the entire state in a three-month-long walking tour and hopes to galvanise mass support for a TDP resurgence and majority to replace the Congress in office. From his jail, Mr Jaganmohan Reddy has wielded influence over several Ministers and MLAs who are transferring their allegiance to YSR Congress. The party president Ms. Vijayamma asserts her son, Mr Jaganmohan Reddy would come to power through a popular mandate and she is also confident of his coming out of jail disproving the charges against him

For their part, Telengana activists have been in the forefront of the struggle for a separate state with Hyderabad as capital. Mr K Chandrasekhar Rao M P, leading the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), had recently promised a merger of his party with the Congress if their demand is conceded and that would give the Congress a sweeping majority in Telengana. He seems to be happy with the news emanating from Delhi but if Congress backtrack, he warns, his party would capture the maximum number of Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and make Telengana a “reality”.

An ideal solution for the Congress would be one that seeks to balance the interests of both separatists and integrationists but it would be a tall order at present. Tension-filled Andhra Pradesh now awaits a formal announcement of what appears to have been decided upon in regard to formation of Telengana and that could become a signal for a fresh round of disturbances. To the extent such a decision is coupled with reassurances on an undisturbed status of Hyderabad, which the Centre can rightly demand of, and expect accommodation by, separatists, it might help to calm tempers down.

The Centre has also to keep in view the growing strategic importance of Hyderabad, with its plethora of major defence infrastructure and technological institutions, and which is also regarded as the second national capital. Most Presidents have spent some days in the Rashtrapati Nilayam, Bolarum adjoining Secunderabad, the latest being President Pranab Mukherjee.

A growing metropolis, Hyderabad has a new international airport and is also home to pharmaceutical and several high-tech industries. The city’s development in the post-Nizam era is largely the work of Andhras from all over the state and NRIs and their interests are at stake, if the present status of the city as capital of integrated Andhra Pradesh undergoes a metamorphosis.(IPA Service)