For KCR , the dilemma continues TIMES NEWS NETWORK Hyderabad: The seventh birthday of Himanshu, his school-going grandson came as an opportunity for TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao to avoid the pesky press on Friday. He declared that there would be no political activity on the day and spent the day with his close family members. KCR has been ensconced for the last week in his Medak farm house mulling on how to leverage the possible creation of Telangana. If he has readied a game plan, that has not been shared with his party functionaries. At the end of the day after the Congress core committee meeting, TRS chose not to react officially, though party functionaries Vinod Kumar and Harish Rao said the Congress was as usual being evasive by referring the matter to the Working Committee. KCR remained incommunicado and is likely to continue so over the next few days. Though KCR is the man who took out the T issue that had been lying in the cold storage for nearly thirty years and formed a political party in 2000 with the sole purpose of fighting for a separate Telangana state, the problem is that the Congress is all set to garner all political capital out of the creation of a new state. Yes, the Congress bosses are willing to accommodate KCR but only if he merges his party into the Congress unconditionally. KCR is likely to be offered the Medak Lok Sabha seat and his daughter and son might be given assembly seats. Son KT Rama Rao (KTR) is a sitting MLA. But the grand old party is unwilling to concede anything beyond this. In essence this is KCR’s dilemma: after fighting hard for 13 years singlehandedly for a separate state, he is not reconciled to merely merge TRS with the Congress. KCR himself had mooted the proposal for merging his party with the Congress in return for Telangana. But at the same time his sub text was that he be made the boss of the Congress party in the region and with responsibility to dispense Lok Sabha and assembly seats for the 2014 elections. In 2012, KCR had camped in Delhi seeking an audience with Congress bosses with this formula but had to return empty handed. KCR’s dilemma is compounded by the fact that the Congress wants to concede Telangana with Hyderabad as its capital only if the TRS boss merges his party with the grand old party unconditionally. Otherwise, the chances are that Hyderabad will be declared a Union territory. In that event, the people of Telangana might hold him responsible for sacrificing Hyderabad and this is in essence a cause of anxiety for the separate state votary.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 08:34:45 +0000