Struggle bears fruit, Telangana is reality

The year 2014 saw the birth of 29th state of India created by dividing the first linguistic state of Andhra Pradesh into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The decade long struggle of the people of Telangana under the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) banner finally succeeded and the state was born on June 2.

In the general elections that followed the passage of the AP Reorganisation Bill, 2014, two regional parties, TRS and  Telugu Desam Party (TDP) wiped out Congress and secured power in both the states. The angry voters of the residual AP state ensured all Congress candidates were defeated and  Y S Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSRC party had to sit in the Opposition.

The acrimony between Telugu speaking people which was portrayed by the former Vijayawada MP Lagadapati Rajagopal’s pepper spray act in the Parliament continued throughout the year even after division of the state. Both the Chief Ministers won’t see eye to eye on several issues, including the division of assets, and liabilities, employees, water, revenue and power.

The year also saw the last nail in the Maoist coffin with the surrender of Gummadavelli Venkata Krishna Prasad alias Gudsa Usendi, spokesperson of Dandakaranaya Special Zonal Committee along with his live in partner on January 9.

The trial on Y S Jaganmohan Reddy even though remained indoors of the CBI special court all through the year the Enforcement Directorate has swooped big chunks of Rs 863 cr and Rs 47 cr in March and again in the month of December. B Ramalinga Raju, who was part of the   Satyam Computers scam, was sentenced to six months of imprisonment by the Special Economic Offences wing court.

The farming community in the Telugu speaking states continued to suffer under severe financial burden with the RBI refusing to encourage loan waiver to farmers. Both Telangana and AP governments have gone back on their poll time promise of waiver of all farm loans without a cap.

 More than 360 farmers in Telangana committed suicide due to lack of power to run the borewells. The help came very late with the Telangana government finally succeeded in securing additional power from different sources. AP hopes that it would fund the loan waiver scheme by auctioning red sanders in international market.

The Tollywood which has been experiencing the birth pangs of Telangana has lost several of actors, including hero Udai Kiran who committed suicide due to lack of offers. Music director Chakri, comedians AVS and Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam died of ill health.

The plans of Telugu film industry to develop Visakhapatnam as an alternative to Hyderabad for film production were dashed with the Hudhud cyclone bashing the north coastal city and two other neighbouring districts on October 12. Both the states had their share of sorrow during 2014 with the death of 15 people due to a GAIL pipeline blast in Nagaram of East Godavari district, 24 engineering students were washed away river Beas in Himachal Pradesh and 14 school hildren died when a train rammed into their school bus near Masaipet.

The only solace that the people of residual AP who opposed bifurcation is the prospect of Singapore preparing the plan and Japan helping to build the new capital in Guntur district.