The Congress party’s attempt to gain votes in upcoming national polls by creating a new state seems to have backfired.
Analysts say that rushing to carve Telangana out of the larger state of Andhra Pradesh before polls due by May was a misstep by India’s ruling party and will cost it votes.
By trying to appease supporters of a decades-long struggle for statehood and better allocation of resources in the Telangana region, Congress hoped to gain 17 seats in the house that would be allocated to India’s 29th state.
But in doing so the party might well have ostracised not just opponents of a new state, but also the wider electorate.
Scenes in Parliament this week, where one lawmaker let off pepper spray and another was accused of brandishing a knife, did little to help the reputation of those on either side of the Telangana argument, but arguably the Congress party was the biggest loser.
“Congress is paying the price of its political ineptitude” in handling the crisis, B.G. Verghese, fellow at the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank said.
As the party wielding power in Andhra Pradesh, the Congress party should have “ironed out differences” over issues concerning the state’s division, and “worked out a consensus,” including the status of the capital city of Hyderabad, before bringing the measure before Parliament, he said.
Hyderabad, which would eventually become the capital of the new state, is a touch stone issue in the debate; opponents of Telangana fear losing the tech hub that houses the Indian headquarters of housing giants such as Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc.
Having failed to get consensus on the future of Hyderabad, Congress “is now in a mess,” Mr. Verghese added.
The undivided state of Andhra Pradesh has 42 parliamentary seats, 25 are from the coastal regions of Andhra and Rayalaseema, jointly called Seemandhra; the remaining come from the Telangana region.
Congress won 20 seats in Andhra Pradesh during the 2004 general elections and 33 during the 2009 national vote. By upsetting those in the Seemandhra region opposed to Telangana, Congress has put 25 seats (and possibly many more nationally) in jeopardy in order to secure a possible 17.
“Congress is ensnared in a political maze and sure to suffer losses” in the upcoming national elections in a region which was regarded as its stronghold, Bidyut Chakrabarty, professor of political science at the Delhi University said.
The bill is expected to come up for discussion and vote in the lower house next week and if granted approval it needs the consent of the upper house before being sent to India’s president for his agreement.
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