The Fag End Of Babu Regime

Of late, the Andhra Pradesh chief minister completed forty springs of his legislative assembly membership. At first, when he was 28, he was elected as MLA from Chandragiri in Chittoor district way back on 27 February 1978. In his long-drawn-out political journey, he equally reaped praises and blames in equal measure. He experienced many a peak and valley. Now this near septuagenarian’s political life seems to be at its fag end. Now-a-days he looks run down as never in the past. After the bifurcation of the state four years ago, people made him chief minister with high hopes. But Babu belied all their hopes. On the other hand, he has been using his out modish ‘hype’ weapon of make-believe tactics to keep people in the delusion that he was creating something extraordinary!
According to Hitler “By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.
“The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.” The very same strategy was advantageously adopted by Chadrababu Naidu between 1995-2004. In fact, his administration was elevated to the skies during the decade. The then American president Bill Clinton and the Microsoft chief Bill Gates and other outlandish leaders admired him as a great ‘visionary’.
Many international organizations also felicitated him with awards. He appeared as an invincible hero in those days. Both the national and international media gave wide publicity to him. Puffed with the praises, he undertook an organized publicity in the state to send fake signals into people’s minds that his Telugu Desam Party would win with thumping majority. But contrary to it, the Telugu Desam Party under his leadership won only 47 seats out of the total 294 in the 2004 assembly elections. In the same string, it won only 5 Lok Sabha seats out of 42. The voters gave a strong veiled warning to Babu that his publicity gimmickry will not hold water without tangible progress on the ground.
According to the popular political analyst P. Venkat, the state experienced irrecoverable loss during his Chiefministership between 1995-2004. “It was the misfortune of the Andhra people to have Chandrababu Naidu as their Chief Minister. During those days, many farmers resorted to suicides unable to bear the debt burden. Hundreds of ryots consumed the pesticide endosulphan to end their lives. The gravity resulted in prohibition of the pesticide in Andhra Pradesh. The state went bankrupt as Chandrababu strongly believed that agriculture was a sheer waste. This shows his wisdom in a state whose main strength was agriculture. He often quoted that no ‘ism’ would exist except ‘tourism’. This kind of mindset of Chandrababu Naidu caused a deathblow to the state’s economy.
Senior journalist Sambasivarao who was in Hyderabad during 1995-2004, expressing his views said “In order to jack up his political image, Chandrababu Naidu double-dealt with the media. He lured those in key positions by offering them house sites and also money to construct houses. He also arranged foreign trips to them. Babu offered lands, contracts and positions to the owners of the media houses. Probably, media in any other state in the country was not taken advantage of as much as in our state. Contrary to his expectations, media efforts failed to protect his interests in 2004 assembly elections. Then onwards trust in media took a beating!
Sharing his opinions with the Journalist news and views magazine RTI former commissioner P. Vijayababu said that centralizing all the development around Hyderabad and giving a letter, for bifurcation of the state, to the Centre with this ‘two-eyes’ philosophy were the fatal blunders committed by Chandrababu Naidu. Hinting that the Telangana movement started in Chandrababu regime, he reminded that ‘slighting Telangana MLA Chandrasekhararao and not giving any ministerial berth to him, and his inability to stop Telangana movement at initial stage itself were Babu’s lapses which warranted bifurcation of the combined Andhra Pradesh state, he said.
After bifurcation, TDP came to power once again with great difficulty. Though the Telugu Desam Party got 107 seats in 2014 assembly elections and came to power, the YSR Congress Party also gave a tough fight to the opponent. The TDP secured 133,72, 862 (46.3 per cent) votes and 102 seats while the YSRCP got 127,71,323 (44.7 per cent) votes and 67 seats. YSR Congress lost 35 seats with a mere variation of 6,01,539 votes. Modi wave then prevalent in the country helped Chandra Babu to attain power because he made an alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party.
National alliance of People’s movement leader Bhupatiraju Ramakrishnamraju did not agree with the version that people voted Chandrababu Naidu to power with the view that he (Babu) alone would take the Andhra Pradesh along the path of progress post bifurcation. In the entire state, only 46.3 per centage of voters alone believed in his leadership. But he took advantage of the opportunity to achieve his individual and his party interests, he criticized. He further said that the Andhra Pradesh state had Rs 90,000 Crore debts in 2014 and now it became Rs 2,60,000 Crore. The debts constitute 29 per cent in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The funds which were obtained as debts and most of them were spent on unproductive activities which resulted in the accrual of most cumbersome debt to the state. In the financial year 2016-17 the state earned tax revenue of Rs 39,000 Crore of which Rs 14,000 Crore came from the sale of Liquor alone. The earnings from other sectors are insignificant.
Chandra Babu claims that the Pattiseema Irrigation Scheme is the first river interlinking project in India. But what is the reality?
This is not the first Godavari Krishna River Link (GKRL) The media described this pumping of water through Pattiseema as the first Interlinking of Rivers and Naidu called it first confluence of Godavari and Krishna waters. In reality this is the third interlinking between Godavari and Krishna in Andhra Pradesh alone. The first GKRL happened during British period, about 160 years ago when the two rivers were linked for navigation. The Eluru canals from Godavari and Krishna meet at Malkapuram village to form part of the Kakinada-Pondicherry Buckingham canal. About the second GKRL a 18-km pipeline connecting effluents collected in Manjeera basin, a tributary of Godavari, links with River Musi, a tributary of R. Krishna. So what Naidu inaugurated on Sept 16, 2015 is possibly the third Godavari Krishna link in Andhra Pradesh, not the first.
Though Chandrababu Naidu is harping on strengthening the agricultural sector in media statements, the fact remains that the cultivable acreage is shrinking which is deplorable. There is 46.36 lakh hectares of ayacut under Krishna, Godavari, Pennar deltas and under the Nagarjunasagar,Tungabhadra, Yeleru and Nagavali projects. During 2014-15, crops were cultivated in 29.27 lakh hectares while in 2015-16, the same was 27.43 lakh hectares. Thus the net cultivated extent shrunk to 6.29 per cent. The cultivated area dwindled by a further one lakh acres in 2016-17.
Though the Chief Minister was saying that he had been to Delhi 29 times, abroad 19 times for investments and conducted partnership summits in Visakhapatnam thrice, the outcomes did not match with his high- sounding utterances. Even after completion of three years, the designs of Amaravati capital have not been finalized. Expected funds are not being released by the centre. Rampant corruption at all levels has become the order of the day. Allegations galore over Telugu Desam party leaders. Chandrababu’s graph has fallen off in recent times. Though the main stream media is managed by him to work in his favour, hundreds of adverse social media posts are appearing daily. Netizens are targeting both Naidu and the so-called “Yellow Media”. Before coming to power the TDP manifesto said “Babu must come to power for Jobs to youth”. That promise was left unimplemented. But Babu could get minister post to his son Lokesh! Such kinds of satires are flooding in the social media. Some media posts also read that ‘In Chandrababu’s regime the TDP leaders are becoming richer and richer while the people are getting poorer and poorer’ The netizens are getting impatient over the tricks being played by Babu to shift his own lapses against the opposition leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy.
Better Andhra Pradesh (BAP) president P. Gautam Reddy in his interaction with the Journalist news and views magazine said that bribery and land grabbing are on the rise in the TDP dispensation. There are 750 leaders in the Telugu Desam Party who own properties of more than Rs 100 Crore each. Some of them own even Rs 3000 Crore worth of properties. The Heritage Foods Ltd (HFL) which belongs to the Chandrababu family has achieved a turnover of Rs 2700 Cr. It’s share value increased from Rs.200 to Rs.900 during his regime. The HFL registered office which is in Hyderabad, has not been shifted to Amaravati so far. The Heritage group did not make investment worth mentioning in the capital city till now. He questioned the rationale behind the Chief Minister asking foreign companies to rush up and invest in Amaravathi without himself not doing it in the capital region.
GST and Demonetization implemented by the Modi government at the centre caused untold miseries to almost all sections of the people. Chandrababu is getting panicky that they may impact his government. Sensing that his party might lose in the next polls if it continued alliance with the BJP, he brought to the fore the demand of ‘Special Category Status to Andhra Pradeh State’ afresh. Babu is also contemplating to join hands with the Janasena Party chief Pavan Kalyan. Meanwhile Babu is afraid of BJP that it might create trouble to him by taking advantage of his complicity in the ‘note for vote’ case.
Recent developments and statistics suggest that Babu is hell-bent on taking the state to the abysmal low. He is always tries to delude people by repeating the names of capital Amarvati, foreign investments and industrial hubs etc.
Chandrababu Naidu is going over again with the same blunders which he committed during 1995-2004 era. With all these, his credibility levels fell close to a big zero.