Rosaiah at his best
Former Chief Minister K. Rosaiah was indeed a towering personality when it came to fulfilling legislative business either in the Assembly or Council.
Old timers recall that he was among a handful of Congress leaders who gave then Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao a tough time in the business of the Council from Opposition benches in eighties. NTR later went on to abolish the Upper House.
When his turn to tackle the Opposition as Minister in the Assembly came, he handled the situation with equal deftness. On one occasion when Leader of Opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu went on haranguing that his government had done a lot for the development of the State, Rosaiah as Legislative Affairs Minister rose up to recall the development in pre-independence era under British rule.
“The British had laid several railway lines and took up other works in the country. But, India never asked the Britishers to take back what they had grounded. So, the development in your regime was in the natural course of time”.
Left in the lurch
In the ongoing tussle between State and Central governments on the controversy over paddy procurement, a thing that stood out prominently was both of them indulging in blame game and leaving farmers in the lurch.
Farmers were at a loss to know whether they can wait to take up sowing of paddy in the current Rabi expecting an assurance from the Centre that it will lift the stocks.
As last week was crucial for Rabi sowings but there was no response from the Centre, the State government came up with a list of crops that farmers could sow as an alternative. Interestingly, the sowing period for some of them was already over. These included Bengal gram, groundnut, jowar, coriander and safflower.
Foul language in politics
Use of unparliamentary or foul language in politics has become a regular feature of late, although it was a rarity in the past. Irrespective of the reason, the trend is on the rise and Telangana is no exception. The simmering row over paddy procurement between the State and Centre has given rise to such an unhealthy practice.
A sort of duel is on, particularly between the BJP and TRS, and Congress too, is not lagging. What is more disappointing is that the State heads of all the three parties are indulging in the game of slur. Taking a cue from their leadership, the next level leaders are jumping into the ‘cess pool’. Now, they speak as to who should get the ‘A’ certificate, the certification of the censors board for packing excessive obscenity, foul language and violence in feature films before they are given nod for screening. “No party is left behind in this game of slur as the degeneration goes on…”, opines an old-timer (politician).
Adverse notice
The State government has released orders sanctioning ₹250 crore as special grants for the development of mandal and zilla parishad territorial constituencies.
Released at a time when the model code of conduct on account of elections to Legislative Council from local authorities constituencies was in force, the order received adverse notice since the members of the ZPTCs and MPTCs form the electors.
They had repeatedly brought their frustration at being ignored in the matter of duties and remuneration to the notice of the government. The government had recently issued order enhancing the honorarium being paid to the elected members of the local bodies and withdrew it within a day after questions were raised on the violation of the model code of conduct.
(N. Rahul, B. Chandrashekhar and M. Rajeev)
