That differences and disagreements will mark Telangana-Andhra Pradesh relations seem to have been written into the very conditions and circumstances of their coming into being. The two States have been on a collision course on all issues of shared interest ever since the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Concerns relating to sharing of resources and distribution of assets and liabilities were addressed in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, but regional chauvinism and competitive politics in both States have found new contentious issues to feed upon, and reopened old, settled disputes. Given that Hyderabad is to be the shared capital for 10 years, the Act grants special powers to the Governor to ensure law and order in the city. This was an extraordinary solution demanded by an extraordinary situation, and was worked into the Act that paved the way for Telangana. But Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) have been complaining of encroachment on the powers of the State. True, law and order is a State subject, but in the context of the hostilities between the governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and Hyderabad being the joint capital, vesting special powers in the Governor seemed logical enough. At the time the Act was passed, the TRS must have considered the special powers for the Governor to be a minor irritant in the process of creation of Telangana. But having been voted to power, the party seems intent on making this a Centre-States issue, though all that the Centre has done now is to issue an advisory on the basis of the Act.
But the advisory over the law and order powers of the Governor is only the latest point of confrontation between the two governments. Telangana’s decision to undertake a survey of all households to eliminate those deemed ineligible for welfare benefits was also a concern in Andhra Pradesh. The fear was that it would be used to determine the ‘nativity’ of people and exclude from government schemes those seen as belonging to coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. Earlier, the Telangana government scrapped the fee reimbursement scheme for colleges with a view to extending financial assistance to only those students whose parents were residents of Telangana as on November 1, 1956, the date a unified Andhra Pradesh was formed. While the TRS won the Assembly election on the strength of its agitation for Telangana, it cannot hope to continue to get political purchase on a regional chauvinistic plank. The governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh need to quickly get on with governance and concentrate on the livelihood concerns of their people.
