No time-buying option left for Congress on ‘T’

No place to hide, no time to buy, no excuses to repeat. That is the reality the Congress Party has to face now.

All options before it have been exhausted. It has to take a decision, a bold decision which may be hard, harsh, soft or unpleasant for one section or the other.The decision may be to the expectation of one region or opposed to the sentiments of the other. It may have an adverse affect on the future poll prospects of Congress in the state should not be a reason to prolong the suspense.More than the people of the different regions the leaders are becoming impatient. They have been repeatedly promising the people of a good outcome. Many have their entire future pegged to the decision of the Congress. Leaders of all parties know how to convert the sentiment in to strife, when their personal aspirations are steamrollered.Slowly the war of words is turning in to venom spitting with the language bordering on the edge of decency. In private conversations each region people call the other by unprintable epithets.Many groups in Telangana have out rightly come out with their plan for an armed struggle if the democratic process does not work out. 

Posters to the affect have sprung up in some parts of the state.While the three regions have their demands, MIM has been waiting on the sidelines. It is watching the moves by the Congress. In the last few months the ties between Congress and MIM have gone from ‘good friend’ to ‘first foe’. Further the MIM leaders have received a roughshod treatment with their arrests in various cases, some dating back to seven years. 

MIM sees that as revenge by the Congress for breaking up a decade old alliance. Its leaders have wowed to teach the Congress government in the state a lesson.So any decision taken by the Congress may not be palatable to the MIM. So there can be more hurdles to the solution.The Congress Party had taken on itself the task of settling the division of Andhra Pradesh at an appropriate time. The demand for a separate Telangana has been hanging fire since the last six decades.Sentiments are running high in all the three regions of the state.  There is some sort of fear psychosis gripping the residents of many people in different localities of Hyderabad. This fear was not felt even at the height of war with Pakistan. People of each region are suspicious of the other. The Congress has been using its time tested policy of squandering away time thinking that the problem will vanish.  To its consternation the party has found that this problem has reoccurred.When a problem or issue surfaces it becomes the duty of a national party that is part of the Central and in this case the state government also to ponder wisely and work towards an amicable solution. It should only help the government to come out with a concrete solution to the issue on hand.

But of late as the fortunes of the Congress have hit a negative direction, the party elders have tried to impose solutions on the government that will suit its political survival.This was precisely the formula adopted by the Congress to solve the Telangana issue. It tried various methods, formulae, ways, appeasements, baits, lures and traps to rope in the people from both the  sides -  for and against division of the state to its fold and thereby get a grip on the situation.

Unfortunately, there was no single leader either in the Centre or the state who could give it a real picture of the situation and sentiments in the state.All Congressmen in their state have had no choice but to go with the people’s sentiment of their respective regions.Top leaders who are dealing with the Telangana issue from the Congress side have had no real knowledge of the ground realities in Andhra Pradesh.   The leaders have had a one line order form the party bosses which said ‘get them’.

Congress was under the impression that people will cross party lines like in earlier days. Here the   issue has several dimensions that have become tangled with sentiment, socio-economic factors and a clear cut cultural divide.The Congress party was fooled by several people several times who said that this issue will not last long. It believes in ‘certain’ people at certain times. And it does no homework to revise that belief over a period of time. So its policies are hit by the vagaries of time.There is no option left for the Congress but to announce its decision in a frank and clear manner. Let it not worry about its fate, it should look at the larger interests of the people of the state and stand tall as a national party.

RajasekherKV@sakshipost.com