Telangana Neta’s Natter| Congress Leaders Find the Sharp Edge of SIR

The special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls has found surprise outcomes across Telangana, but two of its latest ‘cases’ have an unusual political flavour — with the notices landing at the doors of top Congress leaders, Minister Ponnam Prabhakar and TPCC president B. Mahesh Kumar Goud. For Ponnam, the discrepancy concerned his father’s name. The electoral roll carries his father’s name as ‘Satyanarayana’, whereas his actual name is ‘Sattaiah’. The notice sought documentary evidence to establish the correct name. The SIR exercise also caught Goud on the wrong side of a spelling discrepancy. His surname ‘Bomma’ figures in the 2002 electoral roll only as the initial ‘B’. When Goud entered ‘Bomma’ in full in his enumeration form during the latest revision, election officials spotted the mismatch with the old record and issued a notice. The notices to the two Congress leaders have provided an unusual twist to the SIR exercise, with those overseeing the political machinery themselves having to establish their credentials before the electoral authorities.

Size matters in Karimnagar poster war

Political battles take many shapes and the one now on in the state has seen the opposition BRS and ruling Congress flex their muscles and decided that the best way to do this is to indulge in a war of flexis. One such battle unfolded in Karimnagar town where the BRS, as part of its campaign on Congress government’s alleged cheating of people, it erected a huge banner at the camp office of the Karimnagar MLA. Not taking too kindly to this affront, the BRS was given one day to remove the banner but that demand fell on deaf ears forcing Congress to erect more flexis in the town proclaiming that it was the BRS that looted the state in 10 years of its rule. And there the matters stand for now.

Sec. 22A banned land list echoes in different places

Section 22A, meant to be a simple ‘hands off’ list for prohibited properties, has suddenly become the hottest piece of paper in Telangana’s land politics. Several private properties found their way onto the list, leaving owners wondering how their perfectly legal plots suddenly acquired a government ‘Do Not Enter’ tag. The errors triggered panic among property owners and gave Opposition parties a ready-made weapon to target the Congress government, accusing it of a major goof-up. With the list itself becoming a headache, CCLA commissioner Lokesh Kumar called collectors from across the state for a video conference and ordered them to clean it up. He repeatedly gave several collectors an earful for not being clear about which properties belonged in Section 22A and which did not. The episode also exposed a training gap. Earlier, IAS officers usually became collectors after serving as joint or additional collectors, gaining considerable experience in land matters. With more districts and fewer IAS officers, fresh recruits are now getting the collector’s chair sooner. Lokesh said land-law experts would train collectors — apparently, before Section 22A starts collecting more surprises.

Discom chief walks up the pole, literally

Safety first. Even when putting the best foot forward. That appears to be the spirit of southern discom CMD Jitesh Patil who decided to try a handy pole-climbing device the other day. To prove that pole-climbing is less of a workout and more of a walk-up, Patil decided to lead from the front, during his visit to Medchal, strapped on the leg-hooks and began his cautious ascent, one step at a time, like a very serious human spider. Mid-climb, with his focus firmly on not becoming a headline for the wrong reasons, a request from media camera teams that he pose for the camera were met with a firm but polite ‘let me finish the practice first’. Clearly, posing for pictures when perched half-way up an electric pole and fighting against gravity are not something to be juggled with. In the end, Patil managed to send a message — leadership isn’t just about orders, sometimes, it’s about doing the hard climb yourself.

Face-saver cools off Congress-BJP battle

How can a fairly violent back-and-forth peter out? Quietly, as the recent goings-on in Nalgonda proved. As a battle raged between the BJP and the Congress, both sides targeted the homes of each other’s leaders in Nalgonda. The escalation began with some BJP folks, enraged at a comment by roads and buildings minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, attacked his camp office. Not willing to take that lying down, Congress workers conducted a raid of their own, on the district BJP president Nagam Varshith Reddy’s home. Then came the recriminations with each side blaming the other for triggering the events. Finally, it was the oft-repeated statement by the minister that he has no home but a camp office only in Nalgonda that cooled things down between the two sides. As Congress folks said their targeting of the BJP leader was in retaliation to the attack on Komatireddy’s home, the other side pointed out that the minister claimed he has no home, so the charge of attacking his home did not stand. And with that technicality, things have started to cool off between the two sides.

Naidu ends the tale with a curly tail

Analogies are staples in politics. Take Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for instance. Never one who is short on ways to take on his opponents, his latest jibe at the YSRC, used an old proverb – there is no way to uncurl a dog’s tail, and no matter what one does, it will stay that way. Naidu’s comments aimed at YSRC which has been going hammer and tongs at the alliance government over conduct of DSC-2025 and recruitment of 16,000 teachers, reflected in some measure, how vexed he was at the repeated allegations by Opposition party. In a possible signal that he was ready to move on from this topic, Naidu at a meeting in West Godavari declaring that no amount of efforts can straighten a dog’s tail, left the matter at that.

Contributions from L. Venkat Ram Reddy, Neeraj Kumar, Raghu Paithari, P. Srinivas, Sohan Lal