By S.R. Ramanujan
Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) issued a huge advertisement in connection with their campaign for ?greening Hyderabad?. It is not difficult to guess whose picture would have been placed on the top. Naturally, it was the chairperson of the National Advisory Council, and the one who renounced the throne, Sonia Gandhi.
The state chief minister has been shown watering the plants along with the photographs of Minister for Municipal Administration and the Chairman of HUDA. Conspicuous by absence was the picture of the Prime Minister. What a travesty of Congress tradition and culture? Can Congressmen dream of doing this if someone from the Dynasty is decorating the throne? Does this carry any message? Obviously! But the point is the message has been coming out loud and clear from day one that this Prime minister has no clue as to what is happening in his party or in the government and each one of his cabinet colleagues is pulling in different directions.
Even before the Punjab imbroglio could be sorted out by the Supreme Court, another water war is to be fought down South. Prime Minister'sauthority is again on test. PM appealed to the Karnataka chief minister Dharam Singh to release Krishna water from Alamtti and the Union Minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi seems to have put his foot in the mouth when he declared that Karnataka has agreed to release water. Look at the response of the Karnataka chief minister who belongs to the same party. Dharam Singh'sown words ?This CM has not committed the crime of releasing our water to Andhra and I have no intention of doing so? What a choice of words. Releasing water to neighbouring state is a crime and did you notice the word ?our? water. Is it not high time that all inter-state waters are nationalised? He did not spare the Union Water Resources Minister either for embarrassing him with his statement that Karnataka agreed to release Krishna water to AP.
The water story does not end here. Even if Karnataka releases water, Telengana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief and union minister K. Chandrasekhara Rao is not prepared to allow Krishna water from Almatti to the Krishna delta where the farmers have been facing drought conditions for the last three consecutive years. He wants the needs of Telengana farmers have to be met first before Krishna delta farmers. TRS is a coalition partner in the YSR government and it is also one of the alliance partners of Manmohan Singh government. Punjab started the ?water war? with the neighbouring states. AP extended it to different regions in the same state. What is the guarantee that this will not extend to the district or mandal level. As it is, TRS is objecting to the supply of drinking water to Hyderabad city from Manjira river. What will the poor Prime Minister do when all the players in this ?water sports? belong to his party or alliance.
Even a political novice like Renuka Chaudhury has become a thorn in the flesh of Singh with her interference in the defence deals just because she is the daughter of a service officer.You never know what will Arjun Singh be upto? We have seen him in action during PV Narasimha Rao'sregime. Now that he has been exposed he might probably confine himself to (de)toxication process and project himself as more secular than anybody else in the Congress party and in the process provoke saffronites to be more aggressive.
Every government, Prime Minister or Chief Minister has traditionally been allowed the honey-moon period. But, alas this Prime Minister has been denied even such a petty indulgence.
