In Chittoor district on Saturday, a day after Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu's
halt to his fast, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy made up his mind to revise the 'package' after parleys with prime minister Manmohan Singh.
This announcement has had the effect of sending political analysts into a tizzy, with them wondering about the reasons behind the decision.
Uncertainty looms large in Andhra Pradesh, with the N Kiran Kumar Reddy government being pushed into the defensive by Congress legislators, they surmise.
Stability is the concern of all, including foreign investors.
Astrological pundits say that this month, 'Dhanur Masam' as is referred to in the Hindu calendar, is not conducive to taking up new 'ventures'. This will drag on till Sankranti, which falls on January 14, they add. Perhaps this is one of the factors in Jagan's reckoning for his 'delay' in his next political step.
Jawaharlal Nehru's heir Indira Gandhi, who ruled with an iron fist, went wrong, bundling national leaders into a single jail during the Emergency. It is something KKR's apparent misstep on the farmers' relief package can be likened to - he hasn't been able to stop Congress party rivals uniting over the issue.
The not-so-coherent Opposition leaders had, overnight, found a good 'cause' to forge a gainful alliance to give the Congress a tough fight.
The Congress high command has always been known to exercise control over its 'subjects', and this seems to have spelt doom to the KKR dispensation, which has refused to budge an inch to oblige the Opposition over a revised farmers' aid package.
The Opposition says that what the government has doled out is paltry compared to the Rs. one lakh crore state budget, but inflation has seemingly crippled the government into not taking radical steps.
Sources say that in the event of Y S Jaganmohan Reddy pulling the rug from under KKR's feet, the high command rather have President's rule or mid-term polls. Again, this is something that the ruling party can hardly afford, at this juncture.
The Telangana issue is sure to take centrestage and shake the Congress party - experts fear that the Srikrishna Panel's "findings" are likely to be no more than what the high command "wants".
The Congress government has 3 years to endear itself to the cause of farmers or BPL families or minorities, among others, to envisage a better voting pattern.
A fact to be noted - admitted even by YSR - was that that the TDP had only narrowly missed the bus in most of the constituencies courtesy PRP and partly TRS. Earlier, for the same reason, the naive NTR, confiding with the Opposition, worked overtime to bring all the rivals of the Congress on a common platform - an effort which paid off profusely.
Now, after breaking his fast, Naidu might as well be engrossed in the same strategy to repeat NTR's feat.
Courtesy: INN