The Telangana drama has taken a new twist with the UPA government pursuing the idea of Rayala-Telangana state at the eleventh hour of the bifurcation process.
According to political observers, the Congress leadership has opted for Rayala-Telangana with the sole intention of getting the Assembly nod without any hitches.
The original proposal of Telangana state with ten districts and Hyderabad as common capital for ten years will surely be met with stiff resistance in the Assembly and it would be impossible to get the Assembly clearance for such a draft bill.
Given the number game in the 294-member Assembly, the Telangana bill will never get passed.
The defeat of the Telangana bill in the Assembly will rob the moral authority of the UPA government to go ahead with the division of the state.
Hence, the idea of Rayala-Telangana state has been brought back to the table, it is said.
The UPA leadership feels that the Rayala-Telangana bill will have a smooth sailing in the Assembly, thereby giving the required moral strength for the Centre to go ahead with the bifurcation.
The Centre also reckons that Rayala-Telangana proposal will have least resistance from the Seemandhra leaders across all political parties.
Moreover, there will be a huge political advantages for the Congress if the state is divided into Rayala-Telangana and residuary AP.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and its chief K Chandrasekhar Rao can be reined in effectively and the Congress leaders from Kurnool and Anantapur, which will be clubbed with Telangana region, can hope to have a dominating role in the new state.
More importantly, the two principal political rivals-- Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and YSR Congress Party chief Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy can be neutralized with one stroke.
They will be confined to a truncated Seemandhra region. Already, there is a clear softening of posturing on the part of Seemandhra Congress leaders who appear to be veering round to accepting the practicality of carving out Rayala Telangana state.
If a consensus can be built around this formulation, then the most positive spin-off would be felt in the sharing of river waters and irrigation projects as the two major projects—Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar would be in the same state.
Moreover, the division will become symmetrical with AP being bifurcated into two equal parts – 147 MLAs and 21 MPs in each State. There is a growing section of Seemandhra leaders which is coming round to accept the benefits of such a mode of division.
The Congress leaders from Kurnool and Anantapur, including the Union Minister Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy, have been actively lobbying for Rayala Telangana state which was, incidentally, the original idea mooted by the party high command during the initial stages of bifurcation exercise.
Rayala Telangana would also find favour with Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), an influential political force in Hyderabad which is looking to revive its alliance with the Congress.
