In Hyderabad, A joke doing the rounds these days is that Nara Chandrababu Naidu has solved the Y2K problem. In leading his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to triumph in the last election before 2000, he has become the first economic reformer to actually win a mandate. Consider the gloomy past:In 1994, P.V. Narasimha Rao projected the state elections in Andhra Pradesh as a referendum on reforms. The Congress got thrashed and, a year and a half later, lost the general election.In 1997, the United Front (UF) government presented a budget that had the middle classes ecstatic. The next year, the UF was hammered at the hustings.In 1999, Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, at the vanguard of the new economy, both lost the Lok Sabha election.Since Naidu has managed to buck the trend, the obvious question is - does this indicate a popular sanction for reforms? The answer is a very, very qualified yes.Naidu's ways: The CM projects a At one level, the TDP-BJP victory - together they have won 191 out of 293 assembly seats for which polls were held and 36 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats - is a triumph of good old arithmetic. Naidu benefited from Atal Bihari Vajpayee's charismatic appeal - state-specific opinion polls gave him a popularity rating of over 50 percent - and the incremental vote the BJP brought in.In 1998, in a three-way contest, the BJPwon four Lok Sabha seats and 18 percent of the votes. This time it seemed to simply transfer its vote share to the TDP-led alliance. As frustrated Congress leaders pointed out, their party lost in 35 assembly constituencies by less than 5,000 votes.Having said that, it must be pointed out that the opinion polls gave the Naidu Government a high rating too. As the chief minister emphasises, he has won a vote for his governance because "women and youth have backed us in a big way".Indeed, women are a winning constituency in the state. In 1994, N.T. Rama Rao or NTR, Naidu's late father-in-law, swept 216 of the 294 assembly constituencies because he promised prohibition, a pledge that worked magic with rural women. After deposing NTR in 1995, Naidu quickly moved towards revoking prohibition. This seemed to alienate him from the female vote - and he has had to work hard to reclaim it.ActionCareful selection of candidates. TDP fielded 119 new faces and 33 women for state polls.Wooed rural masses with populist measures like Janmabhoomi and Deepam LPG scheme.Planned computer link between state secretariat and districts; reformed power sector.Taken the high moral ground by deciding to keep out of the government at the Centre.Naidu's entire election strategy has been four-pronged: personal image, careful selection of candidates, welfare measures tending towards populism and the promise that economic reforms will usher in a "swarna (golden) Andhra Pradesh". For a non-film star and a staccato rather than dramatic speaker, the chief minister has acquired quite a persona. He is the "doer", the man "who works at least 18 hours a day", who "travels to the 22 districts outside Hyderabad seven to 10 times year".Personal attacks on him - Congress spokesmen K. Rosaiah, G.M.K. Naidu and Puli Veeranna were assigned the task - failed to wash. As Rosaiah admits, "We misjudged the mood because anti-incumbency was not as strong as we had expected." Confused signals didn't help. Initially Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, the state Congress president, spoke of abolishing the Janmabhoomi rural welfare programme. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Eventually, Naidu's brainchild got incorporated into the Congress manifesto under another name, "Gram Swaraj" (village emancipation). The Deepam cooking gas scheme, which Naidu used to convince rural housewives that he was rescuing them from fossil fuels, was coopted as the Indira Kalyan programme. Clearly, the electorate preferred the original to the copycat.When it came to choosing candidates, Naidu, the undisputed leader of the TDP, had a free hand. He deployed this judiciously, fielding 119 new faces for the assembly election; 73 won. The Congress, headed by a woman, put up 27 female candidates for the state election. The TDP responded with 33. Of them 21 won.Whether it was industrialist T.G. Venkatesh (now MLA from Kurnool) or journalist K. Srinivas (now MP from Anantpur) Naidu gambled with fresh candidates. K. Vijaya Rama Rao, former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, also took the plunge and defeated the powerful P. Janardhan Reddy, labour minister in a former Congress government, in Khairatabad. Rao is now the roads and buildings minister. His counterpart in women's welfare is S. Saraswathi, another first-term MLA.Of course, the TDP also played the traditional role of any ruling party in fielding 20 candidates with an allegedly criminal background. Naidu chose not to sack the notorious K. Sivaprasada Rao, a minister whose residence-cumnursing home in Narasaraopet was shattered after bombs supposedly meant for use during polls went off accidentally. The explosion killed four people, including an independent candidate.The irony is that the Congress targeted Naidu's strengths rather than his weaknesses. Charges of personal corruption that the opposition levelled against the chief minister were never an issue; the mess in the state's finances was. The balance sheet tells its own story.In 1993-94, the Andhra Pradesh government had a surplus of Rs 454 crore. By 1997-98, this had changed to a deficit of Rs 8,016 crore. In four years, Naidu has rendered the state bankrupt as it were.Reaction73 of the first-timers got elected while 21 of the women candidates made it to the Assembly.Andhra Pradesh is up to its neck in debt and the cheap rice scheme may have to be pruned.Bureaucracy unhappy with transparency plans; power sector reforms in a muddle.Prevented TDP MPs from becoming powercentres. Is angling for more funds for the state.The state government is also heavily indebted. Borrowings from international financial institutions has raised debt from Rs 12,500 crore in 1994 to Rs 22,000 crore now. As Rosaiah stresses, "Debt servicing alone will take away Rs 4,000 crore every year." C. Hanumantha Rao, former member of the Planning Commission, outlines a tough prescription, "The immediate task is to raise internal revenues. The state needs a growth rate of 6.5-7 percent and higher in the coming years if we have to keep pace with the rest of of the country."Hanumantha Rao says all this calls for "significant investment in infrastructure, particularly rural infrastructure, along with efforts to attract private sector investment". So Naidu will have to raise taxes, increase power and transport tariffs and cut subsidies. The cheap rice scheme - the state spends Rs 1,100 crore annually to supply rice to 11.3 million families below the poverty line, a figure disputed by some in the government itself - is under threat. So is, ironically, the Deepam scheme, which promises a grant of Rs 1,000 for a stove and the first LPG cylinder. Naidu wants to cover 3.5 million homes by March 2000. The bill? Rs 350 crore.Naidu's techno-savvy approach has made him the favourite of the information technology (IT) industry, with everybody from Microsoft to Oracle to Baan Infotech investing in Andhra Pradesh. Next month, American IT company CEOs are attending the Bangalore IT.com exhibition. Richard Celeste, the US ambassador, is taking them across to Hyderabad as well, with, Naidu hopes, proposals for more projects.Convincing the locals has proved more difficult. Naidu conceived the Andhra Pradesh State Wide Area Network (APSWAN) as a link between the state secretariat and the district headquarters and to facilitate daily video conferences with district collectors.APSWAN was to be launched in July but the Election Commission's code of conduct came in the way. While its birth is certain, the Andhra Pradesh Value Added Network (APVAN) is in jeopardy. The bureaucracy is up in arms as it feels APVAN will allow the citizen to access information and perform tasks directly, bypassing the babus.The much-heralded power sector reforms are also in a muddle. A year ago, Naidu unbundled the state electricity board into separate power generation and transmission corporations. The project is in the ICU and the loss-making power bodies now want a subsidy of Rs 2,074 crore from the Government.Naidu inherited a well-organised cadre network from NTR, a network that he himself had created for his father-in-law. This achievement is potentially an albatross around Naidu's neck. Whether it is in the development of new roads - in urban or rural locations - or a variety of welfare programmes, Naidu has created a contractor class that is coterminus with his party machinery. In this election, the handsome face outshone the dark underbelly. Next time Naidu would do well to leave nothing to chance.The crux of the matter is that Naidu needs money, and needs it desperately. Otherwise his dreams - short-term, long-term, mediumterm, whatever - will never be fulfilled. No wonder he is looking to his renewed clout in Delhi - with 29 MPs, the TDP is Vajpayee's most powerful ally - to bail him out.By refusing to join the ministry, Naidu has achieved two things. For a start, he has scotched the hopes of those MPs who wanted to become mini-power centres in Delhi. Ever the artful dodger he says, "Politics in a dynamic state keeps changing, based on emerging issues and situations." In simple English, Naidu means that he will review his decision after the panchayat elections due in six months. If his control at the grassroots is complete, he may feel confident enough to allow his men into the Union Cabinet.What Naidu has also done is announced to the prime minister that he is the sole bargainer from his state - and a bargainer who has a long wishlist ready.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 25, 1999--- ENDS ---
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