Telengana: On a day chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) was in Andhra to seek Lord Venkateshwara's blessings there was trouble brewing back home, with his erstwhile comrades-in-arms in the Telangana struggle protesting against his governance record.
Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) chairman M Kodandaram and several others were today taken into preventive custody and police forces were deployed at all strategic locations in Hyderabad. There were reports that one of the protesters tried to immolate himself.
The reasons for the unrest are the paucity of jobs in government institutions and for graduating students. An important component of the struggle for separate statehood was the implicit promise of jobs for Telangana locals without having to compete with people from Andhra and Rayalaseema.
Students and intellectuals formed an important cross section of the support for a separate state, with Osmania University and Kakatiya University becoming hubs of student protest. Government employees also lent support to the Telangana agitation on the promise of more employment opportunities.
Nowhere is the cracks in the 'Telangana alliance' more visible than M. Kodanadaram leading street agitations against the “failure" of KCR’s government.
Kodandaram was one of the most high profile Telangana supporters. Among the leading lights of the Joint Action Committee, the “brains trust" of the Telangana struggle, he provided the intellectual wherewithal in support of the demand for a separate state.
That Kodandaram is now on the opposite side of the fence is an indication of how far the social coalition that presented a united front during the struggle has splintered after Telangana became a reality.
The students of Osmania University have now turned against KCR for his ‘failure’ to provide jobs. Last month they shouted slogans against the government and burnt an effigy of KCR, an unthinkable act because in the days of the struggle it was effigies of Andhra leaders that were consigned to the flames.
Saleem Pasha, a member of the student union was quoted in The Newsminute as saying, “There are over 1.5 lakh posts vacant in government departments. Only 9000 constable post exams and 1000 group 2 post exams were taken. Even in these, the results are not out and only 3500 students have been employed so far."
TJAC Chairman Kodandaram is backing the demands of the students. Although the police is out in force and has taken Kodandaram and several others into custody, things have escalated beyond the government’s control.
It is being seen as an issue where jobs are scarce and farmers in a bad state, while the Chief Minister is absent and splurging government resources in temples. A protesters even tried self immolation in hyderabad
Tempers have been further inflamed by the description of the protestors as extremists. The Telangana government had earlier informed the High Court that it had denied permission for a protest rally by TJAC because "extremist elements" had infiltrated the group.
Beyond the immediate issue of jobs, there are rumblings of discontent in Telanagana from other sections.
Agriculture in the state is in bad shape with farmers trapped in a cycle of low productivity and excessive debt. There were 1358 suicides by farmers in Telangan in 2015. Telangana is laboring under a debt burden of Rs 1.23 lakh crore, according to the budget estimates.
A quarter of the 64,489 police posts in the state are lying vacant and, along with vacancies in government posts, they have become a sore point between the administration and the protestors.
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