Theatrics, expletives, face-offs and house arrests, Telangana politics has of late been quite entertaining for the layman. It’s entertaining at first glance, but at the same time, it is concerning for the discerning. It’s a political chess game being played with the ruling Congress on the offensive and the opposition BRS launching its own counter-attack. The root of it lies in defections from the BRS to the Congress camp ever since the elections late last year. Up until now, 10 legislators have crossed over from the pink party, decreasing its strength in the Assembly.
Yet, it remains the main opposition being the second largest party after the Congress. The High Court directive to the Legislature Secretary to place before the Speaker pending disqualification pleas against three BRS MLAs for fixing a schedule to dispose of the same within four weeks set in motion an unexpected sequence of events. Hours after the order, a turncoat BRS MLA Arekapudi Gandhi was named chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, a position held by the main opposition by convention. BRS legislator P Kaushik Reddy, known for histrionics, derided the turncoats, offering to send them sarees and bangles in sexist remarks.
He further insinuated that the newly-minted PAC chairman was an Andhra settler giving the war of words a regional twist. With Gandhi and Reddy threatening to storm each other’s houses, the police had to intervene and put all important BRS leaders under house arrest. This episode could be dismissed as yet another political slugfest but for the underlying dangers.
First, the BRS appears to have walked into a trap set by the Congress. The BRS during its decade-long stint in power had weaned away many legislators from different parties, mainly the Congress but calls it “merger” instead of defection. It denied the PAC chairman post to the Congress as well. The Congress is paying back in the same coin but in an improvised version by rejecting the official nominees of the BRS and instigating a BRS vs BRS fight as Gandhi is technically still a BRS legislator.
The Congress claims it stuck to the convention as the pink party has no locus standi to lament over the defections. However, we believe this realpolitik isn’t in public interest. PAC keeps an eye on the finances of the State and as such, is important. The weakening of key democratic and constitutional positions for temporary political gains will destroy government accountability. Similarly, attempts to reignite regional sentiments will backfire both for the parties and the State.