Telangana Elections 2023: A jailed Chandrababu Naidu may do more damage to KCR than an actively campaigning Naidu

While there is no clarity on how most of the migrant sections will vote, the comparatively more organised nature of the Kamma votebank does raise the question whether KCR will receive a return gift from Chandrababu Naidu.

Until 2014, K Chandrashekar Rao was leading a prolonged statehood movement by targeting Andhra lobbies to stoke regional sentiment and ensure social mobilisation for his cause. But that habit of belittling Andhra politicians and lobbies could be coming back to hurt him nearly a decade later, with one of the more affluent and dominant communities with strong links to Andhra Pradesh appearing to be antagonised by recent BRS actions.

His son and IT Minister KT Rama Rao was caught in the crosshairs after a careless jibe following IT professionals protesting in Hyderabad over N Chandrababu Naidu’s arrest by the Andhra government in the alleged scam in AP skill development project. Rama Rao or KTR had derisively described protesting in Hyderabad as “Begani shaadi mein Abdullah deewana” – which in Urdu means an uninvited guest making a fool of himself at someone’s wedding.

A Long History Of Animosity

But what KTR, who is Hyderabad’s cyber ambassador of sorts, forgot was that it was Naidu who was the original hardseller of Hyderabad’s cyber potential and still enjoys goodwill on that score, having caught the imagination of educated middle class and IT professionals across the two Telugu states as an architect of the hi-tech city in Hyderabad. KTR later took a u-turn to make a course correction but it may have been too late.

KCR, during the statehood movement, routinely accused the successive governments of the TDP and the Congress of patronising Andhra business lobbies, mostly represented by Kammas, of looting the resources of Telangana. Even KCR’s daughter Kavitha, under the banner of Telangana Jagruthi, a cultural outfit, did not allow the screening of films that had starred actors belonging to the Kamma community in Telangana then.

The slugfest continued even after state formation when Naidu as the Chief Minister of the sibling state, entered assembly elections in Telangana in2018 to defeat KCR by allying with the Congress-led grand alliance. In a similar way, KCR too was involved in Andhra’s electoral politics in 2019 to deliver a “return gift” to Naidu by helping his rival Jaganmohan Reddy.

In the process, Rao unwittingly earned the wrath of Kammas in the Reddy-Kamma caste war that dominates Andhra politics. Such hostility for KCR from Kammas has now spilled into Telangana.

The fight between KCR and Naidu has a long history, which began after Naidu denied a cabinet berth for KCR in his government around the turn of the century, which forced him to drop out of TDP and enter the statehood movement.

TDP became irrelevant in Telangana after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Naidu, haunted by the cash-for-vote case that KCR pursued against him, abandoned Hyderabad as a common capital for 10 years as enshrined in the AP bifurcation Act, and quickly moved over to his fledgling home state.

Telangana Kammas Left In The Lurch

Kamma settlers in Telangana viewed it as a witch-hunt of Naidu by KCR. The community, which called the shots in Naidu’s regime, became an orphan in Telangana post-bifurcation. The Kammas, who make up around five percent (20 lakh) of the state’s 3.5 crore population, meekly surrendered to KCR after bifurcation.

In contrast to his neglect of the Kammas, KCR has kept demonstratingexcessive love for the Reddys, who also make up 5-6 percent in the electorate by doling out a major slice of power-- 35 assembly seats in 2018 and 40 seats in 2023. The number of seats that Kammas received from KCR never crossed 10 in the 119-member state assembly.

Kammas, rallying behind TDP since its foundation by matinee idol NTR, and finding their caste sentiments hurt, have floated a “Kamma JAC”, demanding their pound of flesh in electoral politics. Led by Congress former MP Renuka Chowdhury, a delegation from the JAC (Joint Action Committee) even met Congress president Mallikarnun Kharge, seeking more than a dozen assembly seats and a couple of Lok Sabha seats for the community.

Kammas influence the course of elections in not less than 30 assembly seats in north Telangana, Andhra-Telangana state border areas, and in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) area.

Poll-Eve Muscle-Flexing

The JAC is aiming to place its demands before the mainstream political parties in Telangana, bringing the spotlight on the role settler votes can play in deciding the fortunes of KCR. As a farming community, they initially migrated from coastal Andhra to Nizam Sagar, Ali Sagar and Kadem project areas at the invitation of then Hyderabad Nizam to promote paddy cultivation.

KCR has been focusing on Reddys from Seemandhra settler groups aligning with Jaganmohan Reddy. With his past connections in TDP, Revanth Reddy, a turncoat from Naidu’s party and now heading the Telangana state Congress party, is assiduously converting the heartburn among Kammas to his party’s advantage.

Migrants of all hues in Telangana are estimated to be over 60 lakh, a sizeable number given Telangana’s estimated population of nearly 4 crore. They also include construction labour, business people and white collar employees from Maharashtra, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and the other states.

While there is no clarity on how most of the migrant sections will vote, the comparatively more organised nature of the Kamma votebank does raise the question whether KCR will receive a return gift from Naidu. Ironically, a jailed Naidu may in the end prove more effective against KCR than a Naidu in the thick of things whose campaign for the opposition in 2018 was used by KCR to reverse polarise the Telangana voters on the ground that Naidu was one of the most fervent anti-statehood proponents.

Gali Nagaraja is a senior journalist, formerly associated with The Hindu, The Times of India, and Hindustan Times for over three decades. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.