Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR)’s decision to crush a rally by the unemployed youths on Wednesday in Hyderabad under the leadership of his one-time comrade-in arms M. Kodandaram might lead to floating of a new political party. Kodandaram, a retired political science professor from Osmania University, is the convener of the Telangana political parties’ joint action committee (T-JAC) which organised the rally.
The police clampdown on the rally and the widespread arrests of its activists has pushed the JAC to float a political party to fight the ruling Telangana Rashtriya Samithi (TRS) in the next elections. The new party in all likelihood will be led by Kodandaram and the JAC will continue thereafter as an independent body.
According to initial discussions that began only now, the new party might be launched by around 2 June 2017, the third anniversary of Telangana state. “We are forced to float a party after the government crushed our protest on Wednesday,” said an aide close to Kodandaram.
Kodandaram, who called for a bandh of all educational institutions in Telangana on Thursday to protest the foiling of the rally, is planning to go to Delhi next month to submit a memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee on “the undemocratic atmosphere in Telangana”. The visit will be after the resumption of Parliament’s budget session on 9 March, sources said.
Kodandaram, along with dozens of his JAC office bearers and 3,200 youth across Telangana, was arrested since daybreak on 22 February and all roads to the rally venue, Indira Park on Lower Tank Bund in the city, were closed till evening. Kodandaram called for the rally demanding recruitment to 1.07 lakh vacant government jobs as promised by the Chief Minister two years ago in the Assembly.
The manner in which Kodandaram was arrested at 3 am as police broke open the doors of his Tarnaka house in the city has evoked widespread protests from opposition parties as well as social media. He was kept at Kamatipura police station in the Old City and was released in the evening after the rally’s proposed time closed.
Fearing “Jallikattu type” prolonged protests on the streets of Hyderabad, the state government has ordered the police not to allow any mass gathering on the city streets. The intelligence wing of the police got reports that the JAC was planning to continue the staggered protests at the venue till the government comes down and announces filling up all the vacancies.
The denial of permission by the police to hold the rally even after Kodandaram moved the High Court, has deepened the chasm between the ruling TRS and the JAC, though both were at loggerheads for over a year. The advocate general (AG) appearing for the police had told the court that the JAC had a history of creating violence during the Telangana agitation.
The AG’s argument that Kodandaram and the Left wing elements in the JAC were responsible for the large scale violence at Neckalace Road, close to the present rally venue, during the “Million March” protest in February 2011, had burnt all the bridges between the TRS and the JAC. The AG had also told the court that Kodandaram had as many as 73 criminal cases against him during the statehood stir.
Kodandaram told The Sunday Guardian on Friday: “In fact, CM KCR was an accused along with me in almost all the cases foisted on us by the then Congress government in the combined AP. By mentioning the same cases, this TRS government has done immense harm to the cause of Telangana.”
Other JAC functionaries S. Prabhakar Reddy and K. Raghu, too, told this newspaper that the TRS government was not ready to allow democratic and peaceful protests by people on various issues. “It is not possible to express our dissent or protest on a host of issues and we are forced to fight the ruling party at a political level; thus there is the need for a party,” Prabhakar Reddy told this newspaper.
However, senior TRS leader and Telangana Home Minister Naini Narasimha Reddy refuted the charges made by Kodandaram and other JAC leaders. “It is not correct to say that the government has not allowed permission to the rally. The HC has suggested three or four places to the JAC, but they refused to abide by the law and insisted on breaching prohibitory orders at Indira Park,” Reddy told this newspaper.
Palla Rajeswar Reddy, another TRS legislator and government whip in the Legislative Council, said that “Kodandaram had become a tool in the hands of Congress which is trying to destabilise the KCR government through the back door.”
“We are not scared of Kodandaram or his JAC and we are ready to face them anytime as people are with us,” said Rajeswar Reddy.