A sense of unease has gripped the Ministers as well as other people’s representatives in the North Telangana over the recent “encounter of Maoists” in Warangal district. The people’s representatives are worried about adverse public reaction as the general perception among people is that the so-called encounter was unprovoked and unwarranted as there had been no attacks by the Maoists.
According to sources, a few Ministers took up the issue with Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday evening. They were believed to have conveyed to the Chief Minister that it might prove counter-productive to them personally apart from causing a dent to the Telangana Government’s image.
They feel the ‘encounter’ could have been avoided and it has put them under tremendous pressure unnecessarily when the Government is keen on making its impact felt in the villages that supported them during the Telangana agitation.
Though not willing to divulge the Chief Minister’s response on the discussion, a Minister confided to his close aides that the general consensus was that “it could have been avoided”. ‘Government will be blamed’ A senior Minister argued that Government would be blamed as the police action was not “retaliatory” as the Maoists had so far not targeted either ruling party politicians or Government property. “We could have defended the encounter if the Maoists had indulged in violence but there has hardly been any noticeable Maoist violence in the last one year,” the Minister confided.
Ministers and MLAs also feel unease for the fact that they received strong support from Maoist sympathisers during the Telangana agitation and most of them, in fact, joined the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and worked for them in the elections. “Facing them would be extremely difficult now. More so when we have officially announced that TRS was only pursuing Maoists agenda,” an MLA explained.
The TS Government is already concerned with the opposition parties’ attack on it on the farmers’ suicides in recent times, and the encounter would only provide enough ammunition to them to generate heat in the Assembly session this month.
“We fear the ‘encounter’ will also strengthen the position of our political detractors and those who opposed Telangana precisely raising the point that Maoists would make a comeback once the new State was formed.”
