Desaraju Surya
Hyderabad: K Rosaiah completed 100 days as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh on December 11, after having ascended the throne on September 3 following the death of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash on September 2.
The first ten days of Rosaiah’s stint have gone in mourning for Rajasekhara Reddy and the next 40 days in political uncertainty over his continuance as Chief Minister in the wake of demand for appointing Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy as the successor to his late father.
Amidst this came the unprecedented floods in different parts of the state that kept everyone engaged for more than 35 days. Over the last 15 days, the Chief Minister had been busy in fire-fighting over the Telangana issue and now the integrated Andhra Pradesh movement that picked up in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.
Governance has become the biggest casualty in Andhra Pradesh as the state has been moving from “one crisis to the other” for over three months now.
“There is a crisis but it’s not so much crippling. There is certainly an amount of slackness in the governance. Lack of a strong ‘leadership’ is obvious,” a Cabinet minister observed.
Everyone acknowledges that Rosaiah, given his vast political experience, is an “able administrator” but not an “able leader.”
“There is inarguably a (political) leadership vacuum in the state, caused by the death of Rajasekhara Reddy,” the minister, considered a ‘neutral’, added.
Bureaucrats point out that there has been a lack of “cohesiveness” in the administration in the last three months.
“Everything is happening in a routine fashion but there is no guidance as such from the top on effectively carrying the government programmes forward,” a district Collector noted.
For most part of these 100 days, the Chief Minister was busy trying to make his Cabinet colleagues fall in line and get down to serious administrative business, as a majority of them were jumping over each other to display their loyalty to Jaganmohan Reddy.
The Chief Minister’s attempts to tone up the administration through a bureaucratic shake-up did not materialize for one reason or the other. “This has also left the bureaucracy in a state of despondency, leaving a telling impact on the administration,” a high-ranking IAS officer pointed out.
Added to all these is the grave financial crunch that the state has been facing. The state’s coffers have dried up and the government is dragging the cart through borrowings from different sources. All the major development projects have virtually come to a standstill as the government owes lot of money to the contractors.
Uncertainty prevails even over the welfare programmes as the subsidy bill has become too much to bear for the government.
With the political crisis stirred by the resignation of MLAs and MLCs from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions likely to continue for some more days and with no signs of the movements for separate Telangana and unified Andhra Pradesh abating, real governance will continue to be on the back burner.
Hyderabad: K Rosaiah completed 100 days as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh on December 11, after having ascended the throne on September 3 following the death of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash on September 2.
The first ten days of Rosaiah’s stint have gone in mourning for Rajasekhara Reddy and the next 40 days in political uncertainty over his continuance as Chief Minister in the wake of demand for appointing Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy as the successor to his late father.
Amidst this came the unprecedented floods in different parts of the state that kept everyone engaged for more than 35 days. Over the last 15 days, the Chief Minister had been busy in fire-fighting over the Telangana issue and now the integrated Andhra Pradesh movement that picked up in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.
Governance has become the biggest casualty in Andhra Pradesh as the state has been moving from “one crisis to the other” for over three months now.
“There is a crisis but it’s not so much crippling. There is certainly an amount of slackness in the governance. Lack of a strong ‘leadership’ is obvious,” a Cabinet minister observed.
Everyone acknowledges that Rosaiah, given his vast political experience, is an “able administrator” but not an “able leader.”
“There is inarguably a (political) leadership vacuum in the state, caused by the death of Rajasekhara Reddy,” the minister, considered a ‘neutral’, added.
Bureaucrats point out that there has been a lack of “cohesiveness” in the administration in the last three months.
“Everything is happening in a routine fashion but there is no guidance as such from the top on effectively carrying the government programmes forward,” a district Collector noted.
For most part of these 100 days, the Chief Minister was busy trying to make his Cabinet colleagues fall in line and get down to serious administrative business, as a majority of them were jumping over each other to display their loyalty to Jaganmohan Reddy.
The Chief Minister’s attempts to tone up the administration through a bureaucratic shake-up did not materialize for one reason or the other. “This has also left the bureaucracy in a state of despondency, leaving a telling impact on the administration,” a high-ranking IAS officer pointed out.
Added to all these is the grave financial crunch that the state has been facing. The state’s coffers have dried up and the government is dragging the cart through borrowings from different sources. All the major development projects have virtually come to a standstill as the government owes lot of money to the contractors.
Uncertainty prevails even over the welfare programmes as the subsidy bill has become too much to bear for the government.
With the political crisis stirred by the resignation of MLAs and MLCs from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions likely to continue for some more days and with no signs of the movements for separate Telangana and unified Andhra Pradesh abating, real governance will continue to be on the back burner.
1 comment:
you andhraite suryanarayana. we know you are from that coastal river city of vijayawada. because of your settlement in hyderabad, a local telangana journalist has not been able to get a job in english media. go to your capital and find a job there.
jai telangana, jai kcr, jai komaram bheem, jai sammakka, jai sarakka. jai hyderabad, jail warangal
Peetala ramachandra reddy, karimnagar
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