“A Chandra for Andhra Pradesh and another Chandra for Telangana. So both the states shall bask under the silvery moonlight.,” so goes an advertisement.

This advert is all over the place in the twin cities these days. Both the Chandras, however, seem to have other ideas. The T Chanda – KCR and the Andhra Pradesh Chandra – CBN seem to be at perpetual loggerheads and in the process, both the states are set to lose heavily.

The way sparks are flying between both the leaders, it’s present tense and future imperfect. Be it the row over the status of Government employees, or the Polavaram project or even the word like ‘War Room’ is leading to wordy duel between the two.

In fact, Chandrababu-KCR rivalry is one-and-a-half decade old. At one time, they were pals, in fact, both were on the same page while ousting NTR. It was only after the 1999 polls that KCR fell out. He was unhappy over being made a deputy speaker of the assembly. He found that Chandababu had preferred another person from his caste and in the name of caste balance, kept KCR out of the cabinet. KCR left TDP and founded TRS. The rest is history.

Now both the leaders are chief ministers of sibling states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and have a lot of business to do together. They also have to play a key role to smoothen rough edges in the relations between both the states and its people. However, they appear to be in no mood for reconciling and both have not wished each other.

Naidu has the advantage of being on Narendra Modi’s side while KCR is ploughing a lonely furrow. One only hopes that these two leaders would demonstrate the required statesmanship and put their heads together to develop both the states.

-Raka@sakshipost