In 1977, they stood rock solid behind Indira Gandhi. Even as voters across India punished her in the General Elections held in the aftermath of the Emergency, the voters of Andhra Pradesh gave 41 out of 42 seats to the Congress. In 1989, they stood rock solid behind Rajiv Gandhi. Angered and feeling betrayed by the Bofors scandal, voters across India rejected Rajiv in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. But the voters of Andhra Pradesh gave 39 out of 42 seats to the Congress. In 2009, they stood rock solid behind Sonia Gandhi. The 33 out of 42 seats won by the Congress in Andhra Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections played a big role in helping the Congress win more than 200 seats after more than two decades. Even the founder of the dynasty Jawaharlal Nehru was handsomely rewarded by citizens of the state who gave 37 seats to the Congress way back in the 1957 Lok Sabha elections, the first one held after the formation of Andhra Pradesh as a state in 1953.
Even the most die hard supporters of the Congress and the dynasty now seem to agree that Rahul Gandhi will not be so lucky. This time, leaders and voters of Andhra Pradesh appear determined to teach a lesson to the pre-eminent political dynasty of India. On October 5, 2013, Y.S R Jaganmohan Reddy thundered and hurled a public challenge at Sonia and the heir apparent Rahul: “It is Sonia Gandhi who decided to divide the state just to crown her son Rahul as the next PM of India. She did all this with an eye on votes from Andhra Pradesh. This is nothing but a dictatorial decision and I request all political parties including the BJP to come forward and oppose this arbitrary decision taken by the Congress chief.” After spending 16 months in jail following a revolt against the Congress High Command, Jagan Reddy has emerged as the undisputed leader of people and forces opposed to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh into the two proposed states of Telangana and Seemandhra. Jagan Reddy is the son of the late Y.S.R Reddy who was credited with the spectacular electoral revival of the Congress in the state since 2004 and till his untimely death in a helicopter crash in 2009, soon after leading the Congress to a massive victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha as well as assembly elections. YSR was staunchly opposed to the formation of a separate state of Telangana and seemed to have won the hearts and minds of voters of Telangana in the 2009 elections. Soon after his death, the Congress publicly agreed to a long standing demand for a new state of Telangana. The can of worms that was opened then has now spilled over to the streets of the undivided state in ugly outbursts and displays of partisan emotions and prejudices.
Manjukesh Tripathy works for the back office of a multinational and has been living in Hyderabad since 2009. He is mystified at the manner in which old friends and colleagues belonging to Telangana and Seemandhra have become hostile towards each other. “They all speak Telugu and have family relations through marriages. And yet, some of them are now behaving as if they belong to India and Pakistan. So many childhood friendships have been shattered”, he says with a dismayed shrug of his shoulders. It is only in the last few months that Indians like Manjukesh have taken the trouble to learn more about the Telangana dispute; often because frequent strikes and bandhs have prevented them from attending office. Back in 1953, when Jawaharlal Nehru was compelled to bow down to public opinion and create the state of Andhra Pradesh, the Seemandhra region was part of the then Madras state while the Telangana region was part of the erstwhile kingdom of Hyderabad ruled by the Nizams. Even then, Telangana was poverty stricken compared to the Seemandhra region. Since then, there has been a simmering movement for a separate state of Telangana which has now and then erupted as massive agitations. It was the creation of the three new states of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in 2000 that revived the demand for Telangana in a major way. Since then, a regional outfit called the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti has emerged as a formidable political as well as electoral force. Till YSR was alive, his personal charisma and popularity had enabled Sonia Gandhi and her advisors in Delhi to successfully put off a decision on Telangana. But all hell seems to have let lose since then. If the state is bifurcated as the Congress now seems determined to do, the Seemandhra region will have 25 Lok Sabha seats while Telangana will keep 17 seats.
Given the manner in which people of the Seemandhra – including Congress leaders – are displaying strong feelings of betrayal and anger against the party after it decided to split the state, even Congress supporters agree that most of the 25 Lok Sabha seats of the Seemandhra region are lost to the Congress. What Sonia and her team are gambling on is allying with the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti and sweeping most of the 17 seats of Telangana in the 2014 elections. Their logic: voters of the region will reward the party with a rich electoral harvest with a majority of the seats. Besides, Congress strategists seem to contend that voters of Seemandhra will forgive and forget with passage of time and that the Congress will eventually make a comeback there.
But not everybody is buying this argument. Political analysts are mystified at the manner in which the Congress has been mishandling and mismanaging the situation. After all, three new states were created in 2000 without the kind of anger, bitterness and violence that is being witnessed now in Andhra Pradesh. Perhaps Sonia Gandhi and her strategists have a plan that is not evident to others. But one thing is clear: Rahul Gandhi will be the first member of the Dynasty who will not find any support from voters of Andhra Pradesh.
