The political capitulation of the leadership of the major political parties in Andhra Pradesh — Chandrababu Naidu, Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and Pawan Kalyan — to the Bharatiya Janata Party on a Constitution amendment bill, parting company with fellow states of south India, points to a deeper crisis of political legitimacy of Andhra’s power elites. Accused of various acts of omission and commission, the ideologically bankrupt leadership of the Telugu Desam Party, Jana Sena Party and YSR Congress Party find themselves on the same side as supplicants in the Delhi Darbar.
Since the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, in which the BJP lost its majority in Parliament and became dependent on the support of allies, all the three Andhra parties have been willing supporters of the BJP on a variety of issues. However, their decision to part company with other southern states on a proposal aimed at tilting the balance of parliamentary power against the demographically and economically better-performing southern states is an act of political servility.
Ironically, both the TDP and the YSRCP came into being on the foundation of Telugu self-respect and pride — atmagauravam. The TDP’s founder, the late N T Rama Rao, coined the famous phrase that “the Centre is a conceptual myth”. He challenged Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s model of centralisation of power and forced her to appoint the Justice Sarkaria Commission on Centre-state relations. Reddy formed his party in protest against the manner in which a Delhi-based coterie within Congress treated him and his mother after his father’s death.
For politicians rooted in this idea of atmagauravam, it must be truly demeaning to find themselves being blackmailed into submission to the leadership of a political party of no consequence among the Telugus. Their willingness to supplicate in pursuit of political relevance and power points to a deeper crisis of political leadership in new Andhra Pradesh.
Consider first the manner in which the two dominant political parties of Telangana responded to the Constitution amendment issue. Both the Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS, originally Telangana Rashtra Samithi) and Congress joined forces with other southern states, pointing to an interesting turn in Congress politics. Being a regional party, the BRS quite understandably remained loyal to the region’s cause. Interestingly, Congress in Karnataka and Telangana, under the leadership of powerful state-level leaders, also expressed solidarity with their southern neighbours, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has never missed an opportunity to project his image as a regional leader, not allowing the BRS to monopolise that platform. The commitment shown to Telangana’s development by the leadership of both the BRS and Congress has enabled them to marginalise the BJP in the state’s politics. After an initial burst of Hindutva activism in the state, the BJP has been reduced to an also-ran.
What then is the crisis in new AP? First and foremost, it is a crisis of governance due to excessive corruption by successive leaderships. New AP has the distinction that both its chief ministers — Naidu and Reddy — served a jail term. As serious as the problem of corruption is insidious casteism. The three dominant political parties represent three dominant castes — TDP is dominated by the Kamma caste, YSRCP by Reddys and Jana Sena by the Kapu community. Casteism is rampant in Andhra administration, politics and business, especially in real estate.
The problems of the state have been made worse by its dismal fiscal condition. It was evident from the very beginning that after bifurcation AP would become dependent on the Union government for fiscal munificence. After all, in the erstwhile united AP, state finances were kept afloat by Telangana’s fiscal surplus, a byproduct of Hyderabad’s growth. With Hyderabad denied, new AP began its life with a fiscal handicap.
Such governance challenges have been made more difficult by Andhra politics. Naidu returned to power dependent on an ambitious Kalyan, with an even more ambitious son, Nara Lokesh, snapping at his father’s heels. The politics of generational transition within the TDP, with N T Rama Rao’s family still nursing a grievance against Naidu for the manner in which he betrayed his father-in-law, and now keen that Lokesh should quickly inherit the mantle, has further complicated governance in the state.
Naidu’s obsession with building a new state capital at Amaravati has diverted much political and administrative attention away from the more pressing challenge of new urban development, including the hard infrastructure and soft superstructure of urbanisation. Andhra’s business elites were expected to migrate from Hyderabad to the Andhra region after the erstwhile state’s bifurcation. They had been accused by Telangana leadership of neglecting the region’s development while cornering the benefits of Hyderabad’s growth.
However, the clever decision of TRS leader K T Rama Rao not to alienate Andhra business and professional elites after the state’s bifurcation has helped retain both capital and talent within Hyderabad, contributing to the relentless growth of the metropolis. Andhra’s Kamma and Reddy elites are either invested in Hyderabad or overseas, mostly the United States. Few have as yet returned to the state to invest in its growth. With neither the BJP nor the Congress party able to pose any major challenge to Naidu and Reddy, the state’s politics and development are caught in a vicious cycle of personal aggrandisement and caste politics.
After the petering out of the first separate Telangana and separate Andhra agitations of 1969-72, Hyderabad witnessed sustained development under successive governments. Naidu became the darling of Indian business but his two successors as chief ministers in Hyderabad, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and K Chandrashekar Rao, continued to pursue the city’s development.
Consequently, over three decades, from 1980 to 2015, Andhra capital and elites made Hyderabad their home. New AP’s fiscal dependence on Delhi, the hold of investigative agencies on the state’s leadership and the Andhra elite’s continued attachment to Hyderabad have combined to weaken AP’s political leadership, making them beholden to the Delhi Darbar.
If a growing Hyderabad remains the magnet that continues to attract Andhra elites, cities like Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati will be slow to develop as modern urban and cultural spaces. Having established itself as a separate state, AP has to revitalise local business, educational and cultural hubs around existing cities rather than hope that a money-guzzling capital at Amaravati can become a magic magnet.
Baru is a writer and former editor, The Financial Express
