Politically Misinclined !!!

In a couple of days some part of the country and the Andhra Pradesh State would go to elections. The first phase of elections kicks off on April 16th 2009.

AP would have coupled it assembly and Parliamentary elections this year owing to early dissolution of the state assembly 5 years back during the reign of N.Chandra Babu Naidu.

Things have dramatically changed since then. Towards end of Chandra Babu's term in 2004, there was droughts in the state causing a serious setback to developmental and in effect the popularity of Chandra Babu Naidu and lots of hostility by the severely suppressed and now eradicated Naxal/Maoist groups. Brewing popularity of Telengana sentiment ensured that Telugu Desam Party had its final blow giving a landslide victory to Congress, TRS combine under Dr.Y.S.Raja Shekhar Reddy.

In the last 5 years Telengana sentiment has taken a backseat, and TRS failed miserably while internally TDP lost more than half of its cadre owing to quitting of Devender Goud and emerging of Praja Rajyam under Chiranjeevi. What's left of TDP today looks more of empty vessel making lots of noise in terms of doling out innumerable social benefits which sound unrealistic, unasked and biased.

Schemes like Cash-exchange scheme, TV scheme which have mass appeal but eventually are luring people to vote for them in return for nothing. Schemes like a house for 1 Lakh, provision of land to the poor, reclaiming of area handed over to private owners for mining back to people are all on the cards of TDP. The party is hardly promising anything on growth, but is promising on returning the fruits of growth they sowed during their 9-year long tenure. TDP a very forward approached and growth focused party deteriorating to these cheap gimmicks is totally disheartening and shows extreme levels of desperation.

While the Congress has been in power from 2004-2009 there has been immense growth in the revenues for the state. Drought has ended, famers are happy, government was riding the global economic and financial boom without any caution. They sold/auctioned lands/properties/mines/minerals/sand and almost everything they can derive value from. Diversion of land rights for forests, bauxite & iron ores, coal, cement, sand where all calmly been sold to private players. While the CM YS RajaShekar Reddy claimed less than 30 Lakhs as assets owned by himself and in his family through an affidavit in 2004 has now crossed over 10,000 Crores as of 2009 comprising of holdings in Raghuram Cements, Jagruti Publications and over a half a dozen Power Plants across the country. Just a trivia for AP it took 50 Years to produce 12500 M watts of power from 213 MW in 1960s. YSR owned Athena Energy plans to generate 14000 M watts in 7 years more than any private player (Tata Power, Reliance Energy, GVK). In Raghuram cements YS Jagan's shares where worth 45 crores when bought after renaming it as Bharti Cements its worth 6500 crores.

List

Jagathi Publication (Sakshi Paper, Sakshi News Channel, Indira TV) - 3500 Crores

Sandur Power - 1000 Crores

Raghu Ram Cement - 6500 Crores

Athena Energy - 50,000 + Crores

Forest Plantation Ltd

Saraswathi Power & Industries

Pullivendula Polymers

Silicon Builders, Classic Reality, Caramel Asia Holding, Bhagavath Sannidhi Estates, Silicon Infrastructures

Janani Infra Structure.

The above list is not exhaustive and used to siphon in the corrupt black money into legal tender and pay heavy dividends to the share holders/promoters. Also companies like Asian Infra aid in achieving the money laundering channels and Tax havens for the family. Athena Infra holds most of the converted corrupt money routed through the hawala route through Asian Infra to East Coast Energy or Matrix G2/Sainz Hydro projects.

People are unaware at the level of corrupt ways of the people in power. The ever smiling CM I feel reflects a very averse and carenot attitude when he gives a wicked smile when asked to clarify on the same in the media be it Devils Advocate on CNBC or on NDTV or TV9. He brushes off all allegations made against him by the opposition with same wicked and arrogant smile. He is so extremely confident and God-like stature makes him feel invincible.

The party once famous for internal groupisms is quite numb the reason being all the hostility within the party has been closed and shut tight by the corruption and money they earned. The corruption has amassed at every level during this five years.

Coming to much hyped administration Schemes like Arogyasri, Jala Yagnam, 2 rupee rice are not corruption free. Arogyasri which insures all the people provide funds for critical illness and operations for the white card holders. Unfortunately this has come at the price of non-development of basic health care services. The government hospitals continue to get a step motherly treatment with falling quality, resources and facilities to treat everyone while the government funded private hospitals and feed them with exorbitant and possibly unwanted tests and diagnostic fees which went to the tax payers account.

The instances of diversion of the two rupee rice beyond the state borders with the enforcement people turning a blind eye to the same was common. The quality of the Rice was seemingly bad and quantity of 4kgs per month perhaps serves very little purpose in a big family of unfed.

Under the Jalayagnam scheme the canals restructuring only filled the pockets of politicians the contractors and engineers who worked on them whilst delivering substandard quality projects. While major of the projects still remain uncompleted the project connecting all the major rivers in the country was scrapped by the Union Government.

While all this went on there was high inflation sparked by petroleum but spread to essential food commodities which still remain high. The real estate prices has sky rocketed so much that its beyond the pockets of the common man to buy a decent house. Thanks to the cartel between the politicians, law-makers and the real estate developers. The government still seems to give attractive interest rate deduction schemes to lure home buyers and infuse life to the real estate developers instead of enabling the real Estate developers to drop the prices. I wonder if this government is for the people or for the Real Estate Agencies.

While all these devlopment seems to be taking place a much hyped and now controversial Praja Rajyam Party or Kingdom of People's emerged . This is headed by 54 year-old Padmabhushan Dr.Konidela Shiva Shankara Vara Prasad a.k.a Chiranjeevi (screen name) and operated by his rich uncle Allu Arvind (last produced film - Ghazini,Hindi). Though it has a slow and shaky start post its Mega Launch at Tirupati it has been widely strengthened by influx of seasoned Politicians from all the parties. The initial hype and propaganda doesn't seem to be holding the party for now. The politics, power Struggle within the party is comparable if not more than the already established parties. Tensions, political turmoil within the party has ensure that this was no different from the already existing parties. PRP runs on the star power of Chiranjeevi who seems to have drawn inspiration of likes of NTR on politics and wishes to replicate the same what Telugu Desam did in 1983. Unlike 1983 where NTR was viewed as unanimous choice beyond religion, class, creed and caste as a leader who would take them to growth, Chiranjeevi somehow doesn't live to the stature and charisma of NTR. Chiranjeevi would largely gains from a community of Kapu which he hails from and the Krishna/Godavari delta where the community is strong. There could be swing of fate away from congress as it stands to loose votes which were earlier came from Kapu community in this region. Loss of congress would be PRP's gain. The youth sentiment would also sligthly be pro-PRP as they still continue to idolise Chiranjeevi, Kalyan and Alu Arvind. The joining of Devender Goud with his Nava Telegana Party in PRP added more fire power for PRP with joining of Telengana BC votes. PRP with Devender Goud is much a stronger party than earlier and I too respect Devender Goud a lot !!

I personally feel that PRP is run mostly by Alu Arvind whose interests is in money making than in Social Service. He ideally would want to use the cloud of the government to engage in money laundering and hawala for his crores of Tollywood and real estate money hoarded else where. Chiranjeevi still would be no action cover boy of all this episode. I would rather be very happy with Chiranjeevi be elected and sit in opposition for 5 full years and learn the tricks of trade, prove his worth and dedication before staking a willful claim for the top position of the state. Rightfully I feel one should be compelled to come into social service or politics because someone has asked to one should come if one feels its his duty to serve the society and nation without expecting anything in return. The life of social service doesn't have takes and retakes and doesn't require Tagline like "Social Justice" "Social Telengana" words to appease and attract. It should be a party of action than party of taglines and words.

During this Time burecract turned Politican Jai Prakash Narayan coverted his Lok Satta to politcal party. A bit sad on the move but probably required at this moment seeing the unrealism, opportunism exhibited by the mainstream parties.

Its in a way good to see that parties like Chiranjeevi's PRP adapting shamelessly the main/core content and essence of Lok Satta idealogy with giving due acknowledgement. The fundamentalism and ideology of Lok Satta are quite unique, trend setting and highly growth oriented and majorly egalitarian. Out of 249 assembly seats its contesting it allotted mere 65 seats to Forward castes i.e. 26% while 184 seats where distributed among BCs and challenged classes (88 BCs, 42 SCs, 15 Sts, 10 minority, 28 women & 1 Physically Challenged). This probably overshadows the tall claims of PRP which says its given 104 tickets to backward classes and challenged classes. PRP is trying to cleverly mimic Lok Satta's ideology in every given form but with a different motive which is definetly not to give social justice or Social governance.

Personally there isn't much to comment on CPI/CPM or to that matter ever lying ever nagging ever opportunist TRS. BJP doesn't even seem to exist in the state and we are happy with that. For BJP we get to hear only Bandaru Dattatreya or an occasional Ch. Vidya Sagar Rao; else there is no impactable presence in Andhra Pradesh.

Anyways after such a long post my point is please people don't go for seasoned politicians and yes we are all sick of sorry stories and corruption and we are sick of new opportunists trying to come and join the mainstream politics.

Lets Vote !!! Lets come vote in big numbers !!! Vote for change and Vote for Growth !! Don't get bribed and lured by cheap politicians eventually one ends up bribing for the rest of the term. Aid democracy and heal the state of affairs of the country. Lets start by voting !! Be intelligent, choose intelligently for the future for yourself and for your family.