Vol. XLIII No. 07 February 17, 2019
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TELANGANA: No Cabinet Formed; Administration Takes a Toll

Kambhampati Sarma

THE chief minister of Telangana, K Chandrasekhara Rao fails to constitute the cabinet of ministers, even after 50 days of declaration of the election results. Despite winning the assembly elections with a massive victory of 90 out of 119 seats, except for deputy chief minister, Mehmood Ali, the cabinet is not yet formed.

With the lack of a full cabinet and with the chief minister himself monitoring all the departments, the works have taken a snail pace. The public, especially the working class is affected by this and the CPIM demanded that a full-fledged cabinet be set up soon to honour the peoples mandate.

 

Meanwhile, the TRS government has failed to effectively implementation the Forest Rights Act of 2006, in the last five years. The police and the forest officials have been given a free hand in the name of protecting forests and environment which is only resulting in terrorising of the tribals and the other poor people living in the forest areas. Giving arms to officials in the name of protecting forests, has a potential to cause further turbulence in the tribal areas. The CPIM demanded that immediate measures be taken to bring life in Tribal areas back to normalcy. It urged the government to hold an all party meeting with tribal organizations and political parties.

Further, money and liquor was splurged by candidates in the three-phased panchayat elections held on January 30 as the election commission refrained from reining in the expenses of the candidates. Several panchayats and ward member posts were practically auctioned in the elections held in 12,686 village panchayats. With newly formed panchayats in the state being small, the voting difference between the winning and the losing candidates was very small.

The elections got stalled in some panchayats due to lack of tribal population in seats reserved to the scheduled tribes. The newly elected panchayat managing committees have taken charge from February 2.  The CPI(M) won in 124 panchayats and among them there are sarpanches who won with the help of tribal organizations and trade unions. However, majority of the winning sarpanches are the supporters of the ruling TRS.

Telangana state administration has also taken a beating in the allotment of funds in the central budget 2018-19. The state committee of CPI(M) has condemned the non-allotment  of funds for Telangana as per the assurances given at the time of bifurcation of the united Andhra Pradesh state and formation of the new state of Telangana.

Not a finger was lifted by the center on assurances like establishing Horticulture University, Girijan University, Steel plant at Bayyaram in Khammam district, four-thousand megawatt thermal plant under NTPC, coach factory at Kazipet and Road convention to NMHA. Com TammineniVeerabhadram, state general secretary of CPI(M), condemned the injustice met to the new state in this regard.

A dharna was organized  protesting against the amendment of Citizen bill in Hyderabad and speaking on this occasion, Com Tammineni said that instead of solving basic problems of the people Modi government is trying to divert the attention of the people and divide them on communal lines to cover up the failure of the government in all spheres. This bill is against the spirit of the constitution,he said.

In a move to express solidarity to the Venezuelan government, a protest demonstration was organized by left parties against the aggressive and interventionist stand of the US and other countries in Venezuela  against the Maduro government. Com Tammineni, CPI state secretary Com ChadaVenkata Reddy and other left leaders also participated in the protest.