The Reason for creation of Telangana, political or social???

Congress-Led UPA ruling coalition approves formation of new state Telangana by dividing Andhra Pradesh. But what took it so long to approve Telangana as 29^th state as telangana state demand was from 1948. The formation of telangana has raised many question.  Does small states guarantee of good governance??? Or Congress looking for political advantage by formation of telangana?

Subsequent to integration of 550 princely dominions into the Indian Union in 1956, languages was chosen as the basis on which the new states were formed. Only exception was Hindi the heartland which was so massive that it was considered sensible to create several states.

The reason behind the formation of linguistic states was the belief that language is the basis of culture. If same language was spoken over a state it meant that it represented identical culture. But it was a faulty belief to start with. In fact, Andhra Pradesh was the first state that was created on a linguistic basis. In fact, Andhra Pradesh was the first state that was formed on a linguistic basis. The state was formed against the wishes of the people of Telangana. People of Telangana never wanted the region to be merged with the Andhra state (formed in 1953 after separation from Madras state) as they felt that Andhra's culture was different from Telangana.

This was the basic difference between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and why people of Telangana wanted their state?? Now lets focus on Will congress get political advantage from formation of telangana.

Kiran Kumar Reddy is a devoted Congressman and was chosen by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to be the chief minister of the state in the aftermath of a soaring YSR Reddy. But history is not on his sided. His ministers and MLAs are resigning but that’s not an issue here. As 29th state of the Indian Union comes into presence in the next few months, he should replicate on the historicity of the formation of the 26th, 27th & 28th states of the Indian Union – Chhattisgarh out of Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand out of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand out of Bihar.

It is quite fascinating that none of the three chief ministers who controlled over the parent state – Digvijaya Singh in Madhya Pradesh, Rajnath Singh in Uttar Pradesh and Rabri Devi in Bihar retuned to power after the split of their states. But all of three lose election when elections were in respective state.

In Andhra Pradesh, both lok sabha and state assembly elections will coincide in april-may 2014. Kiran Kumar Reddy will require simply more luck or hard work of party workers to return to power. What is sure for now, is that he is intended to the have history recurrence for him as did for the three above cited chief ministers. But he knows that if he keeps party high command in good humor, he can still have a good career in the party even if the game is lost out for him in the home state.

Equally fascinating is to know that those who created history by being the chief minister of these three new found states Ajit Jogi in Chhatisgarh, Nityanand Swami in Uttrakhand and Babulal Marandi in Jharkhand also did not return to power.

Congress won maximum number of seats from Andhra Pradesh in 2009 lok sabha elections. Now after the formation of Telagana, Andhra Pradesh will  have 25 seats out of 42 and rest 17 will be in Telangana. In this 17, Congress is ruling in 12 seats of course cause of YSR reddy. Like the past formation os state BJP leadership of 2000, the Congress high command has good solid reasons to formTelangana. The party has cut its losses, which it would have otherwise grievously suffered if it had not spitted Andhra. The party may still loose badly in the 25 parliamentary seats of the parent state Andhra Pradesh, but could gain ominously in the 17 seats of the Telangana region, as after the formation of Telangana (TRS) will not have any political issue so most probably TRS will merge with Congress.

Now look at the development story, Does small states a guarantee of good governance?? I will go into facts for this question. Between 2004-05 to 2011-12, the annual growth rate of the mother-daughter states.

Bihar-11

Jharkhand- 6

Madhya Pradesh -9

Chhatisgarh- 9

Uttar Pradesh- 7

Uttrakhand – 16

Obviously its always easy to handle a small state rather than a large one. But for good governance, states required a good leader with good administrative capability and bill to rule the state towards development. As Bihar is not a small state, but still working better than Jharkhand.

The formation of Telangana was inevitable. The upcoming 2014 elections in Telangana, both parliamentary and assembly could just be the way for Congress.  It is now time to explore a Second Republic with numerous smaller states based on their economic sustainability. 

Why landmark verdict of SC is even not sufficient??

The latest verdict of Supreme Court should be warm welcomed as a initiative towards cleaning up the electoral system.  SC has ruled out that all convicted parliamentary leaders and legislators will be disqualified from holding public office with immediate effect. But, unsurprisingly, parties are gearing up to encounter the ruling on the baseless ground that the ruling interferes with the elected procedure to the extent that it narrows down the list of nominees that parties can pick to contest elections.

Politicians are the icon of the society. They represents the nation or state for the society. They should not have a criminal past or present. But in india, the facts may shock many of us. Out of 543 loksabha seats 162 members of Parliament have criminal charges against them. Seventy-six of them face serious charges comprising murder and rape. The scenario is even worse in state legislative assemblies and councils. According to election watchdogs Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch (NEW), of the 4,896 lawmakers—members of Parliament and legislators—who voted for the presidential election last year, 1,448 faced criminal charges. In their affidavits before the Election Commission earlier, 641 had cited serious charges such as kidnapping, extortion, murder and rape.

Politics and crime should be sea distance, and courts would not be intervening to curb criminals from becoming politicians and vice versa. But let’s face the truth. Politics in our country is much more multifarious. It does not render itself easily to idealistic propositions. Courts may be successful in keeping criminals out of representative institutions, but they cannot keep them out of politics. At the ground level reality where politics plays out rough and dirty, both worlds have a synergetic existence.

In our country, political parties need criminals as much the criminals need the former. At the ground level, inclusion of political impact and power takes place through violence. Politics is truly violent and bloodthirsty in villages of our country. We know of the fights between the Congress cadre  and left in Kerala stretching for generations, between the Trinamool Congress and the left in West Bengal, Congress and political rivals in some states and betwen Sangh Parivar elements and the Congress in others. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the top in list who made their name for nonterminating violence. There’s simply no sense in pointing out any special party or state. The fact is such violence is inherent to our political culture.

India needs a complete change up in its electoral politics. It drives even without saying. Since the political class won’t wield the broom to clean its own mess, the effort has to come from the courts. The Supreme Court’s verdict on convicted lawmakers is laudable indeed. The only question arises is why it took so long, this judgment should have come just after the independence.

The primitive nature of our politics at the ground level is the reason parties either outsource toughs and ensure safeguard for themselves while being in power, or they promote them in-house. Now, if political violence is a actual crime, I don’t think any party can claim to be free of violence or criminal party. That being the case, does the Supreme Court landmark verdict really sufficient? The association between politicians and criminals will be continue in spite of this. The benefit for the parties is they can plead helplessness when goons seek party tickets. But they will need to reimburse in other ways.

Interestingly, the ruling court gave a reprieve to existing parliamentarians and legislators from having to step down even if they have been convicted of serious crimes – so long as they have proffered appeals.

The judges ruled:

“Sitting members of Parliament and State Legislature who have already been convicted for any of the offences mentioned in…  Section 8 of the Act and who have filed appeals or revisions which are pending and are accordingly saved from the disqualifications… should not, in our considered opinion, be affected by the declaration now made by us  in this judgment.”

The ultimate test of the efficiency of “landmark verdict” is whether it will advance the project to clean up the electoral system.  On that count, however, there is cause for looking the ruling with some sobriety. That enterprise requires  a more broadbased reform of electoral laws, which today puts those with influence power and money power’ at a distinct benefit, comes at election time.

The court’s judgment is a enjoyable step for a good electoral system but needed a  lot more verdicts from SC for a crime free political system. Don’t be astonished if political parties find a way.

Why Nitish (JDU) dared to quit NDA alliance??

The JDU (Janta Dal United) finally announced the split of its 17th year old alliance with BJP in Bihar and walked out of the NDA. This was more or less result of the Narendra Modi's foots coming closer to Delhi as he was declared the party chief compaingner for the upcoming 2014 lok sabha elections in goa party meet.

JDU and NDA splits is also a result of Nitish-Modi war or it might be a clash of two strong personalities. One has to understand the basic of bihar's politics in order to find the prime reason behind this split.

Nitish Kumār was born in Bakhtiyarpur, Bihar in a Kurmi family. In Bihar there are approx 3.5 percent kurmi population that is too small to help him win elections. Even the people belonging to the caste are geographically concentrated and not spread throughout the state. Nitish biggest rival in bihal is Lalu Prasad Yadav of RJD. In comparison, the yadavs, who supports Lalu form approx 11.7 percent of the population.

From many years Nitish has had to chip away at votes from other castes. This included wooing the mahadalits (Known as Paswan schedule castes, which included Dalits other than the Dusadh, Chamar, Pasi and Dhobi castes) and extremely backward classes or the EBCs (known as non yadav backward classes). The EBCs form 32 percent of the state’s population but had only a 5 percent representation in the state assembly.

Nitish Kumar also wooed the backward caste Muslims known as pasmandas. That helped Nitish to break Lalu's formula of Muslim-Yadav. The Muslim-Yadav formula was the prime reason of Lalu consecutive successive elections despite of bad governance in the state. Muslims in Bihar play an important role as they from around 17 percent of the population as nation stand at 9 percent.

Interesting point in Bihar is that even Lalu also successfully wooed muslims. But eventually he concentrated on the upper caste of muslims known as ashrafs. He even distributed gifts to the ashrafs.

Nitish Kumar was empathetic to the cause of backward caste Muslims while Lalu took Muslim support for granted. On october 2005, seven pasmanda political parties issued a clarion call to defeat Lalu’s (RJD) in the state assembly elections.  Many Slogans like ‘Vote hamara fatwa tumhara, nahi chalega’ and ‘jo pasmanda ki baat karega, wahi Bihar pe raaj karega’ became the order of the day.

This split among the muslims helped Nitish Kumar to become the Chief Minister of Bihar in 2005. That time Nitish smelled the power of muslim vote bank in bihar. The NDA alliance of BJP and JDU won just 11 out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Even after the people of bihar was fedup by the bad governance of Lalu and Rabri. But the truth is Muslims of bihar did not voted for BJP-JDU alliance cause of 2002 godhra riots.

After smelling the power of muslims vote bank in bihar Nitish Kumar focused to wooed the pasmanda Muslims and did not allowed Narendra Modi to campaign in Bihar. And that time The JD(U)-BJP alliance did very well as a result, winning 143 out of the 243 seats in the state assembly. This anti Modi stand continued the alliance did very well in the state in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections even in the 2010 state assembly elections as well. H

So, any kind of association with a BJP that has Narendra Modi at the top would clearly have cost Kumar the pasmanda votes and will help Lalu muslim- Yadav formula. Eventually in recent Lok Sabha by-election in Mahrajganj, the RJD candidate won by 1.37 lakh votes. The worrying thing here for Kumar was that Muslims seem to have voted for the RJD candidate. This was the final nail in the coffin for the BJP-JD(U) alliance.

Now everyone is thinking why nitish continued for eleven years if he had a problem with modi. Even at that time Nitish was the railway minister. Nitish had not only took the side of modi but also he once suggested modi to come out in national politics as he developed gujrat.

In 2002, the situation was different, Modi was no playing a major role in BJP.  And Now Modi is leading the party from front and supposedly the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, the Muslim vote would have moved to RJD, which is something that Kumar could not afford . In the past Nitish managed to keep Modi away from Bihar, but now with Modi in this position, that would not have been possible.

That’s one side of the coin. The caste alliances that Nitish Kumar built were one reason behind the success of the BJP-JD(U) alliance. The alliance was also helped by the upper caste vote that the BJP brought with it. The Brahmins, Rajputs, Bhumihars and Kayasthas, form the upper castes and account for around 16 percent of votes in Bihar.

This was a master stroke for the alliance. In fact, JDU leader and former convener of NDA, Sharad Yadav, admitted  and said after the 2005 win- “We had the masses with us but I am not sure we would have won such a landslide without the BJP. Although some JD(U) members wanted to break from BJP, we realised that it was the BJP which had the support system the upper-caste dominated press, bureaucracy and judiciary. Though Nitish led from the front, the BJP played its part in this win.”

State like bihar for any party the support of the upper castes is a huge help. What the BJP also brings with itself is the RSS cadre, which is a huge help during the election process, from campaigning to manning booths to having the right electoral agents at the right booths. This is something that Nitish would have realised during the recent Maharajganj Lok Sabha poll.

Not the situation is only that for nitish to go along with the congress for the loss of the votes. But that will not also help JDU ironically. As congress is almost dead in bihar and secondly congress is already in the alliance of RJD. So that will not help JDU.

As far as the BJP is concerned it will continue to get the support of the upper castes in the state. But that in itself will not be enough to win a substantial number of the 40 Lok Sabha seats. In the current Lok Sabha, the BJP-JD(U) alliance had 32 seats from the state.

Henceforth, JDU and BJP both will lose votes from the state. As Hindutva is not a big matter in Bihar as in 1990, Lalu arrested Advani for the Rathyatra but the state was peaceful.

As Modi in the charge of BJP,  he really had to some more hard work or some more magic in other states also to ensure more no number of loksabha seats in upcoming election. Whereas Nitish is more stick to stop Lalu to not apply Muslim-Yadav formula.

Biggest Tantrum of Indian Politics

If Advani was really unhappy he should had convincingly demonstrate that he will be stay away from Goa, but because he was genuinely unwell was to have addressed media from his residence and passed on his best wished to Narendra Modi. It would have avoided the ridiculous spectacle on the most senior leader of BJP who trying to sound sincere in their explanations about why Advani was absent. But then, Mr Advani is sulking, and that means that denial of displeasure by way of an excuse  must necessarily be accompanied by a very public demonstration of unhappiness by ensuring that the excuse is obviously flimsy.  The assertion that 'I am not upset, I am only unwell' needs to be said huffily enough to leave people in no doubt as to the fact that the opposite is true.  In this case, what Advani is seeking is not so much to communicate to his party about what he feels, for that has been abundantly clear for a while now, but to use the prospect of public embarrassment as a way of getting what his way. 

The problem in this case, is that there was nothing very specific that he wanted. The question of whether Modi should be called the convener of the elections or its leader was a relatively minor issue; the larger question of who will lead the BJP in the next elections seems to have been largely settled well in advance. Advani's sulk was not backed by any real threat, for indeed there was no viable alternative that he could have proposed. The idea that he himself be called upon to lead the party in the elections is by now, a possibility that is theoretical enough to verge on fantasy, and there is no other candidate the party can rally round with any great enthusiasm. Indeed, if the objective was to thwart Modi's chances then perhaps the best time would be after the elections, when the alliance arithmetic is being put together. That is Modi's greatest point of vulnerability, the fear that he is too polarising a figure to lead a scattered group of alliance partners with their electoral constituencies to protect, but any attempt to have come in his way at this stage would only lead to great unrest within the party. Had Mr Advani's use of the sulk been strategic, then perhaps there was another time and another way to use it. 
Which is what makes Mr Advani's sulk more than a little sad. There is the sulk that can be a potent tool of blackmail and then there is the one that craves an acknowledgement of symbolic significance, and unfortunately Mr Advani's attempt falls in the latter category. In the former case, the sulk comes at a strategic time, and is backed by a specific demand. It also rests on a knowledge of one's own indispensability to the other side. The sulk is used to dramatically alter the previous state of equilibrium by raising the stakes significantly at a crucial moment. This kind of sulk belongs to the Kaikeyi school of thought where a tantrum is used as a pivotal moment in enforcing a new reality. 
The other kind of sulk is the one more commonly used by the likes of Mamata Banerjee, and now Mr Advani , where it used as a reflexive  vehicle of communication rather than as a deliberate instrument of change. It is an expression of an emotional response that spills over, and comes without a coherent plan. Here the only possible solution that can be imagined is that of saving face of the one sulking by some symbolic act of appeasement. Like the elderly relative at an Indian wedding, who becomes the temporary cynosure of attention because of some exaggerated problem he has found with something trivial, the only solution is to give the sulking person some emotional balm and make indulgent soothing sounds of ingratiation. Mr Advani's sulk was nothing but an invitation to be put to be put to pasture in an appropriately respectful way- the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award or the position of a Chairman Emeritus, connoting ritual significance but emphatically denying importance. 
It is interesting that the tantrum is such a common part of our political landscape. One would think that an act that reeks of immaturity and emotional neediness would have little place in the very adult world of politics, but that is far being true in India. The fact that so many politicians throw tantrums underlines the fact there is a market for these, in that at some level we accept the legitimacy of the expectation that drives such behaviour. The idea that adults retain a healthy dollop of childishness within them is implicitly understood and accepted. One has only to go back to the time when Sonia Gandhi declined to lead the government at the time of UPA's first term and remember the bizarre  and utterly cringe-worthy display of emotion that so many senior Congress leaders engaged in on national television. It was as if the leaders of the country had regressed into a state of infantile neediness, so naked were they in their abjectness. 


The dividing line between a show of strength and an admission of irrelevance is a thin one. Sometimes a gesture speaks much louder than any substantive action. The transparent excuse used by Mr Advani in this case points to his unwillingness to really rock the boat as well as his inability to compel compliance to his desires. Trapped in a reality he can neither accept nor change, his gesture is one of empty petulance and  signals the end of an era. When the  past becomes clingy and burdensome, it becomes much easier to shrug  off. This might be that moment for the BJP. As to what its future is under Narendra Modi, is another question altogether.

Is UPA really stable???

DMK chief M Karunanidhi withdraw his support from the Congress-led UPA and its government expressing dismay on India's stand over Sri Lanka at the United National Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Lets take a deep look on the calculations affected by this withdraw and other possibilities also.

Let us focus on the number game. The majority mark for government's survival is 272. With DMK's 18 MPs, UPA had a total of 248 members, and it had the outside support of 59 (SP - 22, BSP - 21, RJD - 4, JD (S) - 3 and Independents - 9), making it a total of 307, which is well over the majority mark. Now let us take the 18 MPs of DMK out. That would bring UPA down to 230, but with the outside support of 59, it would still be 289, which is well over the safety mark.

Let us take a wide view to the other scenarios that have unfolded in the last few days. Wooing of Nitish/JD (U) by the Congress and the hot and cold relationship between the Congress and Mulayam, exacerbated by the offensive remarks made by Congress minister Beni Prasad Verma against the SP chief.

First of all, as TK Arun wrote the other day - Nitish’s Delhi rally – bluster of a desperate politician, Nitish is not to be taken seriously, for this is his own posturing with the 2014 elections in mind. He has of course, also said he will support anyone who gives  special status to Bihar. What if Modi were to make that commitment? In any case, if DMK leaves and JD(U) comes to UPA, the number would be 230 plus 20 plus 59 outside support, making it 309. So its not just safe, but stronger! But this is an unlikely scenario.

The only threat, therefore, is if Nitish decides not to support UPA and Mulayam pulls out his 22 MPs. That would bring the outside support to 37 and the UPA's own strength, minus DMK, to 230, making it a total of 267, which is 5 short of majority.

If we get back to the last year only UPA has lost five parties and 41 MP's from the UPA alliance. By this speculation UPA desperately need mulayam and maya's hand for UPA. In last year TMC-19 and DMK -18 and VCk-1 AIMIM- 1 and PMK- 1. Mulayam and maya can can ring a bell of danger for UPA.

But given Mulayam's track record, this situation may not arise at all. Already there are reports that SP has cooled down due to some behind the scene deliberations. If push comes to shove, Beni can be removed and 'accommodated' elsewhere.

In any case, even if Mulayam sticks to his gun this time and JD (U) is not game, the likelihood of the government 'managing' the support of 5 is more likely than anything else.

In all this, though, some, like Laloo, may be seeing a silver lining. He has been harbouring hopes of making it to the government for a while. With DMK ministers out, he may yet make a comeback.

Of course, pandering to allies' whims will now reach levels unheard of. So, you can perhaps bid goodbye to sane policy decisions.