At daggers drawn

As the Winter Session of the Telangana State Legislative Assembly gets underway in Hyderabad on Friday, one will witness a uniquely rare political polarisation. Given its dominant presence in the House, the ruling TRS has been pushing through its way on almost all issues that have come up in the House.

However, this time around, it may have to confront a new and hitherto unfathomable situation. Having learnt lessons the bitter way, and perhaps swearing by the once bitten twice shy syndrome, the opposition benches are to join forces and take on the Treasury benches as an issue-based collective unit.

On that count, the ruling party and the ‘united’ opposition have drawn their respective party lines to score over each other. If the opposition parties are setting aside their political differences and forging ‘workable’ floor co-ordination, the ruling party, on its part, is working out counter-strategies that will be aggressive from the first day as a means to negate the combined onslaught.

Quite expectedly, the opposition will raise all the contentious issues –sufferings of masses since the November 8 demonetisation announcement by the PM; failure to clear fee reimbursement dues; alleged corruption in Mission Bhagiratha and Mission Kakatiya; non-implementation of the two bedroom housing scheme; and the manner efforts are on to hush up the Nayeem case wherein it is alleged that even ruling party members had links with the gangster.

An indication of the government throwing the gauntlet at the opposition became evident on Wednesday when K Chandrashekar Rao, while regretting the simmering discontentment among the people over welfare schemes, exhorted District Collectors to dig deep, implying that the Congress regime would be under the scanner for its haphazard implementations.

In the wake of the new-found ‘friendship,’ each party has decided to give notices on one particular subject with other parties throwing their weight behind them. In a rare maturity in approach, the opposition has resolved to stay firm and stay put in the House so that there would be no scope for suspension of members.

As a strategic preventive measure, members have been cautioned against rushing to the well or the podium. Demands will be made from their respective seats. To what extent the leaders will be able to keep their otherwise volatile members under a check remains to be seen, though.

However, there are doubts that the new equations will work like a well-greased cohesive unit. It will be tough given that the ruling party, spearheaded by the Leader of the House, a seasoned campaigner, will not take criticism lying low or succumb to the pressure likely to be mounted by the vociferous opposition benches.

He will cash in on the unrest that exists in each opposition party – the Congress party is riddled with internal squabbles; Telugu Desam boss N Chandrababu Naidu has been pushing TTDP to gain in strength in the State, while the BJP may find that its voice is being throttled by the ‘new’ friends.

Meanwhile, one hopes that constructive proceedings devoid of pandemonium and ruckus will set a new national precedent.