Telangana suspense overdrives all parties

What will happen in the state after December 31, the deadline for the Srikrishna Committee to submit its report on state bifurcation? This is the hot topic being debated in almost every major political party.

Not sure of the outcome of the committee, all have decided to be in touch with public and are touring districts under some pretext or other, quite a rare occurrence in a no-election year.

If the BJP is playing ‘Palle Pilupu’ card, Telangana Congress leaders are going ahead with ‘Thyagadhanula Sabhalu’ and the PRP with Praja Chaitanya Yatralu. While the leftists are focusing on local issues, the TDP stepped up its anti-government campaign.

Telangana Congress leaders began district tours to console the families of those who died for the sake of Telangana while YS Jaganmohan Reddy is continuing his Odarpu Yatra in Prakasam district.

In Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema also several ministers and MPs are keeping themselves busy by touring in their respective regions.

TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu is planning to tour the entire state to ‘expose the failures of the Central and State governments on several fronts’.

He has stepped up his tirade against the Congress and has recently completed a tour of Mahaboobnagar and Anantapur districts.

PRP president K Chiranjeevi completed his first round of “Paraja Chitanya Yatras’ in some Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema districts. The party is preparing the schedule for the next round of yatra.

The BJP state committee launched ‘Palle Pilupu’ programme all over the state as part of which 1,000 leaders are touring 5,000 villages. The programme will conclude on October 6. BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu told the party cadre, during his tour of Ranga Reddy and Mahaboobnagar districts on Saturday, that this was the right time to assess party hold over villages as there was no ‘election, collection and selection’.

CPI and CPM leaders K Narayana and BV Ragahvulu respectively are occupied with ‘exposing government schemes’ touring Coastal Andhra districts.

TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao and party leaders are touring several districts to strengthen the party cadre base. TDP leaders and activists across Telangana are joining TRS fold. The TRS chief is planning to intensify the campaign after Dasara. The TRS leaders are warning that the ‘Yellow’ party would be wiped out in Telangana by December 31.

Meanwhile, Telangana political JAC chairman prof M Kodandaram is touring districts to strengthen local JAC units. He addressed a public meeting at Mancherial of Adilabad district on Sunday.

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With an eye on Telangana, Gaddar to launch new party

Balladeer and folk artist Gummadi Vithal Rao, better known as Gaddar, on Sunday announced a new party, Telangana Praja Front. It will be formally launched on October 9 in Hyderabad.

The Front, which is expected to try to wrest control of the Telangana movement, is not just a political party, Gaddar said.

“Time and again it has been proved that only people’s movements succeed, not political parties. We are not going to wait for Srikrishna Committee to submit its report. We are going back to the people to start the movement again as political parties have never achieved such objectives,” he said, in an apparent reference to TRS.

The Front, sources said, took shape after a meeting of Backward Class leaders and trade and employee unions of Telangana, who though active in the Telangana movement have kept away from the TRS. It plans to build a constituency by rallying Dalits, Backward Classes and students.

Mean while, TRS party senior leaders like Nayani Narasimha Reddy see this move as to create confusion among the people in the region and dilute the T movement.

The TDP leaders, however, are learnt to have got the nod from party president N Chandrababu Naidu to extend their support to Gaddar.

The TDP, which proposes to hold a dharna in front of the house of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on October 20, will invite all the parties in the region including Gaddar.

However, after launching a new outfit, Gaddar said his party was not against anyone nor does it aims to counter TRS. According to him, his party would try to bring pressure on the Centre to bring a bill in the parliament for creation of separate Telangana state.

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Mahindra to set up tractor manufacturing unit in Telangana

Giving a major fillip to industrialisation in the Telangana region, Mahindra and Mahindra will soon set up a tractor manufacturing unit at its Zaheerabad facility in Medak district of Andhra Pradesh.

M&M has proposed to invest Rs 300 crore on the tractor manufacturing facility over the next three years that will provide direct employment to about 2,000 people and indirect employment to another 5,000 persons, company’s Vice-President (Operations) V S Venkatraman said.

The proposed unit would manufacture 90,000 tractors per year and also 3 and 4-wheeler commercial vehicles, Venkatraman said.

M&M, world’s largest manufacturer of tractors, will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Andhra Pradesh Government to set up the new unit and commence the project work in the first week of November, government sources said.

The company currently has its automobile plant spread over 343 acres of land at Zaheerabad, 136-km from Hyderabad, where its products like UV (Maxx), 3-wheelers (Champion Alfa), Light Commercial Vehicles and buses are manufactured. It has employee strength of 641 and a vehicle assembly capacity of 218 vehicles per day.

M&M has not sought more land for the new unit saying it would be built on the vacant land at the existing unit.

Submitting M&M’s latest proposal for setting up the tractor manufacturing unit, Venkatraman, however, wanted the state government to extend a ‘special package of incentives’ in view of the large employment-generation potential in the backward Telangana region, official sources said.

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