Prof.K. Nageshwar is India’s noted political analyst. He is a former member of the Telangana Legislative Council and professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India
Professor Nageshwar – Why TRS plans to merge Congress in it?
The ruling TRS is on a hectic plan to lure as many as Congress MLAs to its fold so that the grand old party loses its existence in the state legislature. In 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress won 19 seats. Among whom 12 have already shifted their loyalties to the ruling party. In its first innings too, the TRS executed Operation Aakarsh and poached several of the opposition MLAs. The chief Minister KCR had a justification for this politics of encouraging defections. According to KCR, the opposition was hatching out a conspiracy to destabilise his government in a bid to prove that Telangana experiment was a failure. The TRS won 63 out of 119 seats. The smaller margin for TRS gave credence to KCR claims. Congress has a history of undertaking such operations to weaken its political rivals. But, in the elections held after premature dissolution of the state assembly, the TRS won 88 seats and two independents joining the party took the tally to 90. Still, the TRS continues with its policy of encouraging defections from opposition parties. The two TDP MLAs are in TRS fold. The TDP lost its hopes in Telangana as the party is seen as Andhra origin party. With the TDP leaders losing the confidence of revival in Telangana, they have a reason to defect. But, the Congress MLAs who won the mandate primarily opposing the TRS regime are joining the party claiming that they want to strengthen the hands of KCR who is developing the state. The fact remains is that the ruling TRS is luring opposition MLAs in a bid to stifle the dissent.
Chief minister KCR has a special plan designed at Congress. The TRS has already lured 12 Congress MLAs. It hopes to get the support of one more MLA so that the two-thirds of Congress legislature party would merge with TRS to avert the action under the anti-defection law. The TRS played the same trick in the Legislative Council with both the Congress and the TDP legislature parties merging with TRS. Judiciary has to pronounce its verdict on the legality of such a merger exploiting the provisions of the anti-defection law. But, the political intent in these machinations is very clear. The TRS has already succeeded in stripping the Congress its status of the main opposition party. The Congress needs at least 10 per cent of the strength of the legislature in this case 12 to retain the opposition party status. The party has already lost it. Now, the TRS intends to unveil the MIM as the opposition party with the highest number of MLAs. The MIM has seven members in the house. If the Congress loses its 13th legislator, the party would only have six MLAs lagging behind MIM. Thus, a friendly party assumes the role of the main opposition party.
With this, the Congress would not just lose the main opposition party status, it would also demoralise the party and incapacitate it from launching any agitations in the next four to five years. The TDP is decimated from the state. The YSR Congress which won an MP and three MLA seats in 2014 has withdrawn from Telangana politics and is most unlikely to return given its interests in Andhra Pradesh. Even if it comes back it would be playing a role of further weakening the Congress vote base. The YSR Congress and TRS enjoy comradely relationship. KCR may even bring in YSR Congress to further weaken the Congress. The social base of YSR Congress and the Congress remain the same and any presence of Jagan’s party would only harm the interests of Congress.
The BJP’s tally has come down from five in the last assembly to only one. The CPI and the CPI(M) fail to get any representation in the state legislature. The BJP’s national leadership do not yet consider KCR as a foe given the coalition compulsions at the centre making the saffron party fight for proper political space in the state.
Meanwhile, the Congress moved High Court on the plans contemplated by the TRS. But, the Telangana High Court refused to take up urgent hearing on the Congress petition.
( Prof.K. Nageshwar is India’s noted political analyst. He is a former member of the Telangana Legislative Council and professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India )
Professor K Nageshwar: Chandrababu Naidu’s post poll Crusade: What does it Mean?
Ever since the elections, The TDP supremo is on the warpath. He has launched a sort of a battle on the Election Commission of India(ECI). Even as his critics call it desperation due to the fear of imminent defeat, Chandrababu Naidu seems to be on no path of return.
His anger over the manner in which the ECI has been conducting itself is certainly justifiable given the storm of suspicion, criticism surrounding the functioning of an otherwise Constitutionally autonomous body.
The ECI was clearly found wanting on ensuring the polls uninterruptedly. Despite several phases of voting, the ECI failed to ensure that the EVMs do not report malfunctioning on the poll day. One can understand the problems in few EVMs given the character of the complex technology involved. But, the large number of EVMs developing technical snags in Andhra Pradesh is a point to ponder. This forced the authorities to allow voting later into the midnight, something un-precedent and unheard of. Despite two decades of experience, why technically fool proof EVMs could not be ensured? Why should the EVMs still develop such teething troubles?
Adding further confusion, there is a significant difference in the number of EVMs that developed malfunctioning reported by the ECI and claimed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister. The reports emanating from the ground do not inspire confidence in the claims of ECI though the TDP claims may be over exaggerated.
The ECI has been failing in its duty to ensure free and fair elections as it could not even provide sanitised electoral rolls. In the age of information technology, preparation of electoral rolls without mistakes, duplication, etc is not a herculean task. A country that can develop an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and an anti-satellite weapon, failure of the ECI to prepare electoral rolls without any mistakes in incomprehensible. The Chief Electoral officer’s (CEO) admitted that they have asked for more central forces but have not received them and the reasons he said he was not aware. Why did the ECI fail to send an adequate number of central forces as the elections are held in the first phase itself and the state is witnessing simultaneous polls for Loksabha and Assembly?
The CEO of Telangana tried to absolve himself from faulty electoral rolls by stating simply sorry that too after the elections. Such a blatant denial of people’s right to vote is certainly unpardonable. Given the thin margins of victory, large scale missing of voters has the potential to tilt the mandate.
The adamancy being displayed by the ECI on the request of over 20 political parties to order a count of 50 per cent of VVPAT machines has further eroded the credibility and partiality of ECI. It may be recalled here that ECI has not suo motto initiated the Confidence Building measures like attaching VVPAT machines. The Supreme Court made it do so. It is surprising that ECI took a hard stand on the question of counting the VVPAT machines. It stood firm on its stand to count only one polling booth in an assembly constituency by random method. The apex court has ordered the ECI to count five such machines in a constituency. The reasons cited by the ECI for its refusal to count more VVPAT machines are flimsy. The ECI said that the counting process will take another week. What’s wrong when the people of Andhra Pradesh are already waiting for over six weeks for their votes to be counted due to multiphase voting. They can still wait for a week more. The Counting of VVPAT machines will only need limited resources. Such a count would clear the doubts over the efficacy of EVMs and more so it would clarify on the possibility of tampering of EVM. Nothing else can be more important than ensuring the people’s confidence in the democratic electoral process.
Meanwhile, some acts of EC have raised questions over the political impartiality of the institution itself. The ECI delayed the announcement of poll schedule in three Hindi states to enable Modi to complete his rally in Rajasthan. Similarly, the Gujarat poll schedule was also delayed to give sufficient time for the ruling BJP. The ECI failed to act even when Modi and Amit Shah violated the commission’s guidelines not to invoke the army in the campaigning. Despite the ECI orders, Modi continues to seek votes in the name of Pulwama martyrs and Balakot heroes. Thus ECI remains a spectator. The Commission acted only after the apex court pulled it up. But, the action was limited to Yogi Adityanath, NaMO TV and Modi biopic.
All these questions over the ECI are perfectly justified. Naidu has a grievance over the transfer of even the Chief Secretary and the Intelligence chief. This can also be understandable. But, Naidu’s crusade did not end here. He went on to attack the ECI officials. He expressed doubts over the EVMs to the extent of claiming that his vote was wrongly registered. How is it possible that he could notice wrong registration of his vote. No voter has complained so. Naidu has not raised any objection on EVMs in 2014 when he won the polls. Despite being an active partner in both NDA-1 and NDA-2 governments, Naidu did precious little to return to the ballot. In fact, Vajpayee government was surviving on the support of Naidu. Naidu has been questioning the powers of ECI. A simple reading of the Constitution will tell that ECI is certainly powerful during the elections.
Such unrelenting crusade that crossed even established standards will only defeat the very purpose of the struggle to protect the autonomy of the constitutional body and ensure the impartiality and transparency of EVMs.
( Prof.K. Nageshwar is India’s noted political analyst. He is a former member of the Telangana Legislative Council and professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India )
Prof K Nageshwar : Why KCR is encouraging defections even now?
The Chief Minister of Telangana and TRS supremo K Chandrashekhar Rao certainly had a reason to explain for encouraging defections form opposition parties during his first innings . One might have agreed with it or not. But, it was certainly a reason to put forth.
The TRS won by a slender margin in 2014. Indian polity is replete with examples of how governments running on wafer thin margin were destabilised by the rival political forces This happens more when the party that wants to topple the government is in power at the centre. The Congress that emerged as the main opposition was ousted from power at the centre and lost the ammunition to engineer any political coup against KCR government. Yet, KCR could successfully sell the theory of conspiracy to defend his policy of operation aakarsh post 2014. The other argument was to defend the Telangana experiment. KCR said that the forces opposed to the formation of separate state were hell-bent on establishing that the experiment of Telangana would not succeed and the state urgently needs a political realignment to disprove this thesis. Thus, the thesis on defections was sentimental. KCR has even invoked the name of MIM chief Owaisi to claim that the MP had cautioned him from Delhi that such a conspiracy to destabilise his government was being hatched.
Notwithstanding the controversial policy of encouraging defections, KCR won with more convincing margin. Even the defected legislators were re-elected in 2018 Assembly elections, thus giving a stamp of approval for political defections. The electoral mandate clearly reveals that the people of Telangana have not taken the defections and the criticism around it not so seriously . There is a reason for this. No political party has the moral authority to questions KCR on defections. The congress is the creator of such a political culture. The grand old party is known for destabilising the rival party governments through defections. The Congress while in power encouraged defections from TRS , TDP etc. The TDP which questions KCR in Telangana strangely does the same in Andhra Pradesh where it is in power, in a more unabashed manner. Thus, the people seem to be not taking seriously this dirty political game.
Thus , KCR is motivated by the nature of political mandate to repeat the operation Aakarsh in his second innings too. He has more than required majority now. The TRS won 88 seats and its tally rose to 90 with two independents joining the ruling party. It has the support of seven MIM legislators taking the total support in 119 member Assembly to 97. Yet, the defections from Congress, TDP continue unabated. Ina bid to subvert the anti defections all, the TRS is targeting maximum number of Congress legislators so that it can provoke the provisions of the same law to claim that the Congress Legislature party merged with TRS, a mockery of the tenth schedule of the Constitution of India.
The objective of encouraging defections even after having more than convincing support in the legislature is to decimate the opposition . The TRS has a long term strategy of crippling the opposition so that it will not have any political dissent. The media is already servile to party in power not just in Telangana, elsewhere too in Indian democracy . The civil society is co-opted into the power apparatus. Thus with weakening of political opposition, the ruling party can completely choke the dissent. The immediate objective would be to sweep the Loksabha elections so that KCR can have leverage in national politics. The TRS could establish a winnable margin in as many as 14 out of 17 Loksabha segments during the recent Assembly polls except Khammam and Mahabubabad. The maximum defections are taking place in these two Loksabha segments revealing the short term objective of the defections .
The TRS also suspects that its MPs may also join Congress if denied re-nomination. Already K Visweshwar Reddy defected to Congress. The TRS through these defections is pre-empting any possible strike on it by the opposition.
( Prof.K. Nageshwar is India’s noted political analyst. He is a former member of the Telangana Legislative Council and professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India
Prof K Nageshwar : What this data war all about
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are locked in an intense data war with Hyderabad police conducting raids on an IT company, IT Grids offering services to TDP. Telangana state police and ruling TRS claims that this IT company which maintains TDP app Seva Mitra has access to sensitive information pertaining to people of Andhra Pradesh illegally obtained from Andhra Pradesh government sources, a charge chief minister Chandrababu Naidu vociferously refutes. Instead, TDP accuses that the TRS government in Telangana is hand in glove with YSR congress. The TDP accuses that Telangana government conducted these raids to steal TDP data and hand it over to YS Jaganmohan Reddy. The YSR congress, on the other hand dismisses TDP’s allegation calling it an attempt to cover up the data theft by Andhra Pradesh government.
Thus the battle over data is simultaneously fought both on government and political levels. The things turn murkier with the police of two state governments accusing each other. The TDP calls this episode a nexus between Modi, KCR and Jagan to prevent Chandrababu Naidu from coming to power.
The ongoing controversy cannot be seen in isolation. Angered over Chandrababu Naidu playing an active role during Telangana election campaign, the TRS supremo said that he would give a ‘return gift’ to TDP chief. Since then the TRS has been evincing keen interest in Andhra Pradesh politics. In the guise of federal front the TRS working president reached out to YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. The bonhomie between TRS and YSR Congress is no longer an allegation though Modi’s Kar seva in this need to be established. Given this muddy political manoeuvres clouding the whole episode, the neutrality of Telangana police investigations will not be accepted by the accused.
It is difficult to establish who is right in this data war unless one has access to material under investigation.
In case if the TDP claims are true, Telangana government will be caught on the wrong foot for accessing TDP data from an IT company whether or not it shares it with YSR Congress.
But, Telangana police asserts that it has enough evidence to prove that the said IT Company handling TDP account has access to data pertaining to people of Andhra Pradesh which should have been an official preserve. Any such leakage of peoples data would give undue advantage to the ruling party in the age of big data playing a key role in electioneering.
The TDP will not in any way believe in the charges made by Telangana police though it cannot question latter’s right to investigate as the alleged crime happened in its jurisdiction. The demand of the TDP to allow Andhra police into the investigation is fallacious as its political masters are accused in the case.
Given the grave character of charges and counter charges, an independent court monitored probe can only establish the veracity of the claims and counter claims. Meanwhile, the data war episode will once again reinforce the necessity of a robust data protection regime.
( Prof.K. Nageshwar is India’s noted political analyst. He is a former member of the Telangana Legislative Council and professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India )
Prof K. Nageswar – What is non military pre-emptive strike ?
India described its attack on terrorist training camp in Balakot deep inside Pakistani territory as non military pre-emptive strike. Earlier, strikes carried out in 2016 targeting Pakistani sponsored terrorist camps across the Line of Control(Loc) were called surgical strikes. What is the difference between the two? Why this change in nomenclature?
In 2016 , India carried out strikes on terrorist camps in Pak Occupied Kashmir(POK ). This territory under the control of Pakistan is used by the hostile neighbour to train, infiltrate terrorists into Indian territory across the border. India believes that the Pak occupied Kashmir territories also belong to it and it remains the unfinished agenda on the Kashmir issue. Therefore, theoretically, by carrying out attacks on POK territories, India has not violated any country’s sovereignty and has not crossed international border.
But now the India’s Mirage 2000 war planes have gone deep into Pakistani territory in the KPK(Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) province which is about 65 km from the Line Of Control (LOC). This technically means violating Pakistani sovereignty that can attract punitive action under the United Nation’s charter which calls upon all its members to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations.
Yet, India ventured to enter the Pakistan air space to carry out lethal attacks on the JEM camp. To avoid diplomatic embarrassment, India rightly called it non military intelligence led pre-emptive strikes.
India says it has not waged a war on Pakistan. It has not attacked Pakistani military or civilian establishments. The attacks were precisely targeted on terrorist infrastructure. The article 51 of United Nations charter permits any nation to carry out such strikes as part of right to self defence. But the moot point is can any nation do so pre-emptively. But, over a period of time countries like United States, Israel have been indulging in such pre-emptive strikes in the name of right to self defence.
India has been the victim of cross border terrorism perpetuated by our hostile neighbour. Pakistan has been exporting terror as its foreign policy position. Pakistan knows well that it cannot fulfil its strategic goals by resorting to any direct armed confrontation with India. The experience of wars in the past hold testimony to this. Therefore, Pakistan is indulging in this low intensity war fare which proves to be cheaper and more effective for Islamabad. Pakistan has been resorting to this unmitigated terror attacks under the cover of possible nuclear confrontation. India is deterred from crossing the LOC as it fears that any further escalation in the tensions can lead to a nuclear flash point in South Asia.
But, the country learns of late that Pakistan needs to realise that there are costs associated with its strategy of low intensity war fare. Thus, a paradigm shift has been consciously made by entering deep inside Pakistan.
There are reasons for doing so. The world has changed a lot. The big powers have the worst experience with terrorism. Pakistan’s neighbours like Iran, Afghanistan and even Russia in the past were the victims of Islamabad sponsored terrorism. Pakistan’s economy is in precarious condition and can no longer afford armed conflict. The political system of Pakistan is completely fractured. The opposition did not even recognise the election of Imran Khan and called it a farce. Besides, the present ruling political establishment in India do not shy away from escalating the bilateral confrontation as it does not have anything to lose but only to gain. More than ever before, Indianan political spectrum is united in its fight with Pakistan. Despite sharpest divide on the eve of elections, Indian democracy has shown remarkable maturity and the Indian armed forces continue to demonstrate unwavering will to strike .
All this resulted in the non military pre-emptive strikes. India clearly maintains that it has not attacked Pakistan. But its war is only on terrorism, that too after exhausting all other possible options. A self respecting nation cannot afford to bleed continuously due to the proxy war by the hostile neighbour.
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