Futile exercise

The results of the 12 assembly byelections in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh are more a psychological setback for the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party than a great victory for the Telangana Rashtra Samiti. The TRS won all the 11 seats it contested and one seat was won by its ally, the BJP. But the TRS had held 10 seats which it has now won again. The byelections were caused by its MLAs’ resignations in connection with the statehood issue. There was no chance of the party losing any seat in a region where statehood is a popular and emotive issue. It has actually received a boost  when all the candidates won with a larger margin of votes than in the past.

The Congress and the TDP paid the price for their insincere and inconsistent policies on the statehood demand. The Congress has suffered a grievous blow with its state unit president losing the election from the Nizamabad Urban constituency. The defeat and the challenge posed by former chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s son Jaganmohan Reddy will have an impact on Congress politics in the state in the near future. It is the second successive defeat for state Congress chief. The party’s flip flop on the statehood issue cost it dearly, even though it was the UPA government that announced the acceptance of the demand for a separate Telangana last year. The TDP fared worse than the Congress by losing a seat it had held and forfeiting its security deposit in all the seats. The party’s position on Telangana was more dubious than that of the Congress and Chandrababu Naidu’s obviously motivated attempt to stir passions over the river water dispute with Maharashtra did not impress the electorate.

The byelection results do not take the Telangana issue forward any further. The elections were not a referendum on Telangana. There are a number of issues other than the endorsement of or opposition to the demand expressed in various ways in a region, that go into a decision on statehood. The Srikrishna committee, which has been appointed to study the issue, is seized of the matter, and its report is likely to be ready by the end of the year. All parties should wait for it, especially the TRS, which should resist any temptation to overreact to its impressive victory.