It is not quite common but Telangana, all of 10 years old this June, is getting to celebrate its first decade officially, twice. It was in 2023 that the then BRS government and the then chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao launched a 21-day celebration to mark 10 years of Telangana. The state, formed on June 2, 2014, entered its tenth year and thus the festivities, was the logic then. Many questioned the premature decadal festival and the Congress had then alleged that the BRS was doing it as it knew it will not be in power in 2024, and the buzz in bureaucracy was that even KCR knew that would be his last official celebration as CM. From Farmers Day to Suraksha Day for police and Spiritual Day, the then Chief Minister’s Office’s babus rolled out a 21-day celebration, something on the lines of a 21-gun salute — apparently knowing fully well that it would be their last chance to elevate KCR’s stature for one last time.
FOLLOWERS START CELEBRATING BEFORE RESULTS
With the Lok Sabha election results day fast approaching, there are some who decided that it might as well be time to count their chickens before they are hatched. After completion of polls, followers of YSRC Rajamahendravaram Lok Sabha contesting candidate Dr Guduri Srinivas celebrated his victory. They took him around on their shoulders to mark the end of their “victory campaign”. Similar has been the case with Rajanagaram Jana Sena candidate Bathula Bala Ramakrishna with his followers reaching his home in Rajamahendravaram and felicitating him with shawls and garlands, predicting his victory. This was followed by some merry cake cutting and wolfing down of the cake. In Pithapuram constituency where film star and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan contested from, his followers fixed stickers to their vehicles declaring ‘Pawan Kalyan, MLA’. His opponent YSRC candidate Vanga Geetha’s followers also fixed stickers to their vehicles that said ‘Deputy Chief Minister’.
SPURIOUS LIQUOR BRAND CAUSES FURORE AMONG PUBLIC
The subject of making available various kinds of booze is clearly a very important thing, especially for those who can’t do without their drink every day. It has become a sort of “tradition” in Telangana since 2014 that new brands get added to the list of available liquor and are allowed to sell their booze, something excise minister Jupally Krishna Rao was at pains to point out, adding that the day-to-day functioning of the Beverages Corp., is not something that necessarily comes to his notice. Few would probably care about the brands themselves as all people want is cheap liquor but the entry of one beer brand, based out of Madhya Pradesh, had Jupally on the backfoot. The BRS charged that the minister allowed the new brand to enter the market after a quid-pro-quo, and that the brand itself was under suspicion for supplying spurious liquor in the past to other states and that this had resulted in deaths among those who drank that liquor.
HORSE TRADING AT ITS PEAK?
In the end, elections are all about being right in the numbers game. And sometimes it is apparently a fun task, playing with numbers that is, especially if the target of the game is your political enemy. YSRC leader and Rajya Sabha member V. Vijayasai Reddy, more known for his rhetoric, at times fiery, of late has been talking some numbers. And taking potshots at the rival Telugu Desam. His prediction that the TD will win only four MLA seats this time has been met with some well-deserved skepticism, given the general mood that YSRC may not have the going easy this time round. Vijayasai based his poll outcome for the TD on how that party in the past “purchased” 23 MLAs and won just 23 seats in 2019. In the process, the YSRC leader appears to have forgotten that post-2019 elections, his party “absorbed” three TD MLAs. So the question doing the rounds now is whether the YSRC will end up having just three MLAs this time.
MASSIVE RESHUFFLE ON THE CARDS FOR BABUS
Several Babus in Telangana are said to be on tenterhooks on where they might find themselves once the June 4 Lok Sabha election results are out, and thus ending the agonising long mode code of conduct restrictions. The government apparently has had enough with some bureaucrats in their current positions and is expected to make some changes and if the buzz is anything to go by, there could be some massive overhaul of the administrations. Some in the Congress government are said to be worried that a 10-year “relationship” some bureaucrats and officials have had with the then ruling BRS party, is stymieing plans of the administration and that it is time for some to go from where they are. An emphatic if not massive reshuffle is on the cards, is the word doing the rounds.
Contributions by Avinash P. Subramanyam, Balu Pulipaka, Narender Pulloor, Nabinder Bommala, Vadrevu Srinivas.
