Thinking New Delhi, staying local

The Chief Ministers of both the Telugu states - K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) and N Chandrababu Naidu - are trying to create a euphoria that they have acquired national stature, obviously with an intention to stay afloat in their respective States and win the next elections as the going may not be as easy as it was in 2014.

For his part, KCR is getting ready to hold talks with his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee on Monday in his “endeavour” to evolve a federal front to serve as an alternative to BJP and the Congress.

Though Naidu does not talk much about his future role in national politics, his minions do every day.  He cannot afford to talk about leading the charge of a front at national level at a time when he is yet to turn the tide of public opinion against the BJP, which had “betrayed” AP and the YSRC which wants to “use” the State’s predicament to ride to power.  He sees YSRC, Pawan Kalyan and BJP as an emerging power axis, bent on decimating him and his party.

But Naidu, an astute politician, is slowly creating an impression that the nation was looking at him by making his minions say every day that there is no one to beat Chandrababu Naidu in challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he is the senior most politician in the country while explaining the reasons for the support that Naidu was getting for his no-confidence motion against the NDA on the issue of special category status.

A Minister in his Cabinet went on to say that Modi had starved the State of funds as he was afraid of Naidu challenging him at the national level while another Minister said that a majority of non-NDA parties are rallying behind him as they consider him as a potential leader who could take the BJP by its horns.

For both the Chief Ministers, it is necessary that an impression should gain ground that they are emerging as national leaders so that retaining power back in Telangana and AP will become much easier since people tend to identify a party with its leader and his stature.  At present, KCR does not have Telangana slogan and similarly, Naidu’s name does not conjure up visions of a messiah arriving from heaven to rebuild Andhra Pradesh.

Despite riding the crest of Telangana movement, KCR could get only 65 of the total 119 seats in Telangana and, though, Naidu got a comfortable majority of 102 of the 175 seats in AP, he won many of them with a wafer-thin majority.

In fact, KCR had admitted in the Assembly recently that he had to "welcome" MLAs from other parties into his party to ensure stability to his government since he had inputs that there were attempts to topple his government soon after its formation in 2014.

Naidu too, realising that YS Jaganmohan Reddy lost the election by a margin of just two percent votes, has been trying to cut him to size by “welcoming” MLAs from his party. He wanted to reduce Reddy into a bundle of nerves and nearly succeeded in his brinkmanship, but sudden and rapid developments tilted the scales in favour of YSRCP after he converted the demand for special category status into an emotive issue.

The other unforeseen development that had jarring impact on Naidu was that his one-time saviour Pawan Kalyan, is now behind the enemy lines, raring to inflict on TDP death by thousand cuts, with his anti-incumbency torque.

For KCR, he has no domestic issues but has to be wary of anti-incumbency factor. As Telangana is a land where water is always scarce, it is not difficult for the anti-incumbency wave to build up despite the fact that he had commissioned round-the-clock power supply to farm wells, which instead of helping the farmers had led to the depletion of ground water table as farmers kept drawing water continuously, regardless of whether they needed it or not..

But the astute past-master that KCR is, he has already set the ball rolling in implementation of sure-fire politically expedient measure - paying each farmer Rs 4,000 for kharif and an equal amount in cash for rabi and asking them to spend the money as they liked. The TRS expects the scheme to act as an electoral milch cow.    

KCR had allocated Rs.12,000 crore in the budget for this scheme to prove his commitment to the cause of the farmers which in fact attracted the attention of Opposition leader in the neighbouring State, Jaganmohan Reddy who too promised implementation of a similar scheme in AP. KCR did not lose much time in registering a corporation under Companies Act and appointing Gutta Sukhender Reddy as its Chairman.

The scheme - christened Farmers Investment Support Scheme (FISS) - will serve the twin purposes of providing a wide network for the government to reach out to farmers and at the same time help TRS to use it to further its political interests.

The TRS, which does not have a very good network of workers in the villages, does not have to worry anymore as FISS will have much better set up now and they would be staffed with those who had fought for Telangana state (read it as TRS workers).

Now that he has laid the ground for reaching out to farmers and helping them address their financial needs, KCR has brought up the federal front concept while Naidu is also pursuing a similar line, hoping to convince his electors that he is a better bet compared to his rivals. But Naidu has much bigger task, he will have to reckon with Pawan Kalyan and Jaganmohan Reddy.