As the world ushers in the New Year, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti will look back at 2016 with a lot of satisfaction. Politically speaking this was the year of consolidation for the ruling party as well as the State of Telangana as it completed two years and entered the third year confidently.
However there was no major dramatic or breathtaking fast paced development in the last 12 months.
Not only the Opposition parties including Congress and the BJP failed to recover their lost ground this year, the TRS was able to further strengthen its hold and expand its base. The impressive victory in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) was the high point of the TRS as the party had no base in the state capital till now. It made a record of sorts by securing a clear majority on its own. This was in contrast to all the past elections when the Congress or the Telugu Desam had to rely on the support of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen to rule the city corporation. TRS also brought new areas under its influence by winning the assembly by elections in the districts of Mehbubnagar and Khammam during the year where the party was relatively weak.
Though the Congress tried to challenge the TRS on the issue of land acquisition specially in the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s home district Medak it could not make much headway. The BJP however showed some signs of improvement with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the state for the first time since coming to power and addressing a big organizational meeting. Party President Amit Shah also undertook visits to boost the morale of the party and set an ambitious target of winning 2019 elections. However the party was yet to achieve a major breakthrough which can put it on the course to victory in the near future.
The Machiavellian KCR has kept the state BJP leaders on tenterhooks and confused by cleverly dropping the hints every now and then that his party may join the Modi led NDA government at the Center. His open support to the demonetization by Narendra Modi at the end of the year was also being seen in this context and speculations were rife that KCR was keen to see his daughter K Kavita in the union cabinet. This needs to be watched in 2017 as all parties will start chalking out their plans and strategies for 2019.
Telugu Desam, which is ruling the neighboring Andhra Pradesh under the leadership of N Chandrababu Naidu has gone from bad to worse with all the party MlAs except four defecting to the ruling TRS. The remaining legislators were also divided and at each others’ throat. Though the party recently claimed that it was on course of retaining 8 lakh members in the state it was yet to make its presence felt at the ground level.
In the terms of internal politics of TRS this was also a significant year as KCR’s son K Taraka Rama Rao consolidated his position in the party and emerged as a clear number two and possible successor. By delegating crucial organizational responsibilities to him like giving full charge of leading the party’s campaign in GHMC polls and increasing his portfolios in the cabinet KCR gave clear indication that he was grooming KTR for a bigger role.
It has clearly not gone down well with his nephew and another important minister T Harish Rao who played a major role in building the TRS from its days of infancy.
Reorganization of districts of Telangana was another highlight of the year. With the intention of taking the administration closer to the people Chief Minister increased the number of district from 10 to 31. However with the resources crunch many plans of creating the necessary infrastructure in the new districts headquarters remain confined to the paper.
On the law and order front the state had quite a good year with the police achieving a big success and shot dead a Maoist dreaded gangster Mohammed Nayeemuddin alias Nayeem.
His death in an alleged encounter at the hands of the police in August triggered wild speculations of how he had accumulated cash, gold, properties, lands, other valuables to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees. His alleged links with the politicians of all hues and the top police officials had become talk of the town. However by the end of the year the government itself has denied any such links and said that state police was capable of solving all the criminal cases in which Nayeem was involved.
2016 had started on a tragic note as a Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula hanged himself in the Hyderabad Central University hostel as he was frustrated over his suspension from the university.
It triggered a caste backlash as the agitating students held the BJP leaders specially the union ministers of state Smirit Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya for driving him to suicide by exerting political pressure on the university authorities to suspend Rohith and four other students.
The case is still hanging fire as the officials of the university and the ministry of human resources development were still haggling whether Rohith was a Dalit or not.
On the Maoist front Telangana remained peaceful though the left wing ultras were making attempts to renew their activities and find a fresh foothold in the state. So far their attempts have been foiled and in fact plans faced a set back when more than 30 Maoists including some important leaders were killed in a massive encounter on AP-Odiha borders. Many of those killed were from Telangana.
In a major development visa vis the fight against terror, a special NIA court sentenced five accused of2013 bomb blasts to death. They include Yasin Bhatkal, an important figure of Indian Mujahideen.