UT status to Hyderabad: What’s behind KCR’s praise for Sonia?

Is K Chandrasekhar Rao eager to close ranks with the Congress? He hasn’t demonstrated any sign of piping down his vituperative against Congress leaders, especially Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president Ponnala Laxmaiah, in his recent political speeches. However, when it comes to Sonia Gandhi, he certainly knows how to mind his language. The TRS chief surprised many by singing paeans to the Congress president in an NDTV interview on Sunday night. He credited Sonia Gandhi with being singularly responsible for realizing the Telangana dream. He, however, described the strained relation between the TRS and the Congress as unfortunate and held Jairam Ramesh and Digvijay Singh and other second rung of leaders responsible. [caption id=“attachment_287220” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  K Chandrasekhar Rao. Screen grab from CNN-IBN.[/caption] While asserting that the TRS was fighting the Congress in the elections, he offered an unqualified support to Rahul Gandhi, if the latter was to become the prime minister. In what would be music to Congress’ ears, he breathed fire against Modi saying that he played into the wrong hands of Venkaiah Naidu and Chandrababu Naidu and let his stock plummet. KCR’s assertion that he would not – 100 percent – extend support to Modi in the post-poll scenario too comes as a big surprise to all as he did not fulfill any politically-mandatory formality while snapping connections with Chandrababu Naidu-led Grand Alliance soon after the 2009 elections and yet crossed over to the NDA. He dropped enough hints on his openness to joining hands with the Congress to Sonia Gandhi, exactly on a day when she called him names and termed him power-hungry. She hauled him over the coals in the two public meetings she addressed a few hours before the interview was telecast. There seems to be a backdrop to the development. KCR has immediately bought the apprehension of the YSR Congress, expressed through its mouthpiece, Sakshi, that Telugu Desam Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu is scheming to have Narendra Modi announce on 1 May – election would be over in Telangana region on 30 April – that the BJP-TDP combine, if voted to power, will consider making Hyderabad a Union Territory. This, the TDP feels, will be a strong pitch for the party to reverse the hopes of the YSR Congress in Seemaandhra region. The TDP has dodged and ducked to forge a pre-election alliance with the BJP, even though it was mutually essential, only with a view to avoiding the sharing of negative charge of the BJP which was seen by the people of Seemaandhra region as a party to the bifurcation of the state. The UT move may annul the same and placate the angered electors of Seemaandhra. That there will be a debate on whether making Hyderabad a UT is possible and if so whether a Constitutional amendment is required will all ensue. Whether or not such a promise would bear fruit is a different story, but surely it addresses the immediate expediency of securing votes. As if to lend credence to this view, KCR talked about the proposed UT move at length at his public meetings on Sunday. Though BJP leaders of Telangana tried to downplay the move, the TRS overtly and the YSR Congress, covertly, are upping the ante against the BJP-TDP combine on this issue. If the TDP comes up with this master stroke, the YSR Congress will surely be jolted by this and will have to work out an antidote for this move to retain its flock of voters in Seemaandhra region. An interview of Narendra Modi run by Eenadu, the largest circulated Telugu daily that is very friendly to the NDA formation, on Monday, had specific question on how Modi would protect the Brand Hyderabad. His reply touching upon the contentious issue of law and order in the city and its promotion as IT and Pharma hub do suggest that there is an underlying meaning in the questions specific to Hyderabad. The TRS and the YSR Congress are seeing this as part of the agenda-setting function which is just the prelude for the big announcement. The intermittent period of these two days is seen just as an interlude.