When Mohammad Azharuddin hit three centuries in his first three Test matches against England in 1984-85, it was the bat of Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy that did the talking. Azhar needed a quality playing kit for the home series and his cricket buddy, Reddy, offered to lend his own. So Azhar cycled across to Reddy's home in Hyderabad and picked it up.
Twenty-nine years later, cricketer-turned-politician N. Kiran Kumar Reddy is wielding the willow himself and batting on the front foot. Reddy, who captained the Hyderabad and South Zone under-22 teams in the early 1980s, is defying the bouncers and the beamers from his colleagues from Telangana while espousing the cause of a united Andhra Pradesh. The 53-year-old's pinch-hitting against the central leadership's decision has, however, not won him any admirers at 24, Akbar Road since the party does not take kindly to a chief ministerturning chief dissident.
"I am standing my ground. I have to protect people's interests," says Reddy in his defence. "I have conveyed my views to my leaders in no uncertain terms. I have told them that in their attempt to find a solution to a problem, they are creating a bigger problem. They are committing a big mistake."
If Reddy's attempt was to persuade the UPA Government to roll back its decision on Telangana, it is not happening. The Group of Ministers (GoM) told him in so many words when he met them on November 18. His presentation raised the spectre of water wars, Maoist and communalviolence, power crisis and employee unrest if Andhra Pradesh were to be divided. But it did not cut ice with the GoM.
"The Chief Minister's imagination is running wild," smirks K.T. Rama Rao, MLA of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which has spearheaded the Telangana agitation for the past decade. Reddy's prediction that a Telangana state will witness the return of Maoist violence because virtually the entire leadership of the banned organisation hails from the region, has come in for criticism from Congress leaders, who allege the chief minister is trying every trick in the book to sabotage formation of the new state.
"If K.T. Rama Rao does not know his facts and wants to keep bluffing the people of Telangana, it is my duty to let the people know the truth. After I have gone public with the adverse impact of division on Telangana, a lot of people have begun to think about it. Because the effect will not take 10 years, it will be immediate," says Reddy.
When he took over as chief minister from K. Rosaiah in November 2010, Kiran was seen as this young Reddy leader from Rayalaseema who would kill two birds with one stone. One, neutralise the threat from Jagan Mohan Reddy who also hails from Rayalaseema and two, control the Telangana agitation and govern the state effectively. Thanks to a variety of reasons, Kiran Reddy has not passed the test with flying colours. Jagan has emerged as a formidable political threat in the Seemandhra region and the manner in which the Congress decided to allow the division has completely messed up the ground situation in Andhra Pradesh.
"It is the beginning of the endgame for Kiran Kumar Reddy," says political analyst K. Nageshwar. "The Congress will not disown him because that will make him a political martyr. The party will let him repeat the same points on the floor of the Assembly but go ahead with what it wants to do. Even if Reddy resigns and projects himself as a champion of Seemandhra, it won't make any difference to the Congress." Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu agrees. "He is trying to get a place in history so that people think he has fought for the region," says Naidu.
The chief minister has been unable to leave his stamp on the administration because he has spent more time firefighting on the political front. He admits that the agitations-both for Telangana and for a united Andhra Pradesh-have taken their toll on governance. "We would have fared much better on the investment front if these agitations were not taking place in the state," he says.
Seen as a loner in the Andhra Pradesh Congress till not very long ago, Kiran Reddy has managed to earn himself some admirers in recent months. Senior Congress leader from Rayalaseema J.C. Diwakar Reddy says the chief minister's political stature has risen. "His personal stature has definitely got a boost because he has dared to stand up to the Congress High Command. But it won't be of any use to him politically if he chooses to stay on in the party," he adds.
For the moment, Kiran Reddy denies any plan to leave the party. "Don't mix politics into it," he pleads even as he gingerly sidesteps questions on whether or not he thinks the Congress decision on Telangana was taken with the intention of making electoral gains in 2014. "The cause of a united Andhra Pradesh is bigger than any party's interests. Winning or losing elections is part of politics," he says.
For now, he is putting on a brave face, banking on legal and constitutional hurdles to the bifurcation. But his colleagues from Seemandhra are bracing themselves for a political holiday for the next five years. "There is no way I will get elected on a Congress ticket. If I stand as an Independent, I have a chance," says a state Cabinet minister considered to be close to the chief minister. Kiran Reddy's best bet then is to emerge as a leader who tried his best to prevent the boundaries of Andhra Pradesh from being redrawn and use that goodwill as a rain check.
The regional divide is so strong in Andhra Pradesh presently that Kiran Reddy evokes strong reactions especially among his political foes from Telangana. One of them is Congress MP G.Vivek, who crossed over to TRS in June. "He has always been a loser," says Vivek dismissively, pointing out that the chief minister was one year junior to him at Hyderabad Public School. "In school, he lost to me in the finals of the table tennis championship and now he has again lost on the issue of Telangana," he adds.
All eyes are now on Kiran Reddy to see if he will make a dramatic exit by announcing his resignation on the floor of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly when the draft bill comes up for discussion, most likely in December. "Let's see," he smiles cryptically, adding the match is not over till the last ball is bowled. Reddy would need to demonstrate excellent technique and temperament to register a win on this minefield of a pitch called Andhra Pradesh.
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