Telangana Issue

The second term of the UPA government was marked by the agitation for a separate state for Telangana. Before the 2004 elections, the Congress had allied with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and promised to create a separate state of Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh if it came to power at the Centre. The Congress did very well in Andhra Pradesh in the 2009 elections, but the chief architect of that victory, Y.S.R. Reddy, who was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, was totally opposed to the bifurcation of the state. In the circumstances, the Congress government, now in power at the Centre, went back on its promise on Telangana. [Also ignored was another promise–that a fresh states reorganisation committee would be formed to divide up some of the larger states. This was because the Left, without whose support the

government would not have survived, was strongly opposed to the idea.]

Y.S.R. Reddy died in an air crash, and the agitation for Telangana got a fresh lease of life, with the movement being led by K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR). In November 2009, KCR went on a fast unto death in the cause of Telangana as a separate state; life in Hyderabad was badly disrupted with KCR’s supporters coming out in thousands to protest. The government at the Centre gave in and, in December 2009, announced that the process to form the state was being initiated. The decision caused much resentment among the Congress MPs from coastal Andhra, but it had to be accepted in the end. The Centre appointed a commission headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court, B.N. Srikrishna, to look into the matter of bifurcation. The commission submitted its report in December 2010 but it was rejected by the TRS. After much negotiation, Parliament cleared the Telangana Bill in February 2014. As per the Act, Andhra Pradesh was formally divided to form the new state of Telangana. While the two states were to share Hyderabad as capital for ten years, the Centre was to provide funds to Andhra Pradesh (also Seemandhra) to build a new capital. [It was only in June 2014, after a new government took over at the Centre, that Telangana actually came into existence with KCR as the chief minister.]

Incidentally, in May 2011, there was a historic

development on the state government level. West Bengal, where the Left Front had ruled without break since 1977 (itself constituting a record), decided to switch allegiance, and put the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in power. Mamata Banerjee, who had once been in the Congress but had broken away to form and lead the TMC, became the new chief minister of the state.