Babu happy over 'Stop Polavaram' order

The mega dam proposed at Polavaram village across the river Godavari would have spelt doom for the Telugu Desam and the TRS alike. The Telugu Desam was hoping that the Polavaram dam would not materialise. Much to the happiness of the Telugu Desam, the Left and the TRS, the Polavaram dam could not get environment clearance. This means there will be no Polavaram project.

Had Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy succeeded in taking up the Polavaram, the Telugu Desam would have been washed away. Because those in East and West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts would have voted for the Congress en masse. The Polavaram dam had been a dream project for long and Rajasekhar Reddy would have gone down in the history as the great visionary, after Sir Arthur Cotton.

In the Telangana region, the TRS would have too been washed away because the party failed to stop the Congress from going ahead with the project.

The rejection of permission for the dam had come as a blessing both for the Telugu Desam and the TRS. But it will prove a costly affair to the Congress. However, the Congress may scrape through putting the whole blame on the Telugu Desam, the Left and the TRS. The BJP, though it has a nominal presence in the State, also opposed the dam.

Fact Sheet: MSR triggers unrest in Cong

The appointment of former minister and Karimnagar MLA M Satyanarayana Rao as the chairman of AP State Road Transport Corporation has triggered a lot of unrest among the Congress leaders in the State.

For several months, Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy has not been filling up any vacancies in the Corporations and Committees, despite the fact that several aspirants in the party have been bringing pressure on him to provide them posts. Everytime the Congress leaders go to him with a request to appoint them in the corporations, YSR has been turning them down, stating that it would create a lot of disgruntlement among those who don't get the posts.

But the sudden appointment of MSR as the APSRTC chairman, and that too, with a Cabinet rank, has created heartburn among the other Congress leaders. They are now questioning whether YSR would fill up the posts only if the leaders scold him. Now that the government has entered the election year, it is highly unlikely that he would fill up the posts at this stage, Gandhi Bhavan sources say.

Fact Sheet: Gujarat polls upset media!

The Gujarat election results have upset the plans of several new media ventures and made their promoters think twice.

Most of the promoters have scheduled the launch of their ventures in such a way that they would coincide with the mid-term elections to Lok Sabha, so that there would be hectic political activity in the State and they would have spicy political news to cover. Even "Saakshi" daily proposed to be launched by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, son of Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, was expected to be launched some time next month. So are a couple of Telugu channels.

But, with the Congress receiving a setback in the Gujarat polls, the chances of mid-term elections to Lok Sabha have become bleak. As a result, the new media ventures would have nothing sensational to report and therefore, they are all getting rescheduled. Unless of course, Chiranjeevi really enters politics, which would again kick off a lot of political activity in the State!

Behind The Scene: Chiru entry, a Cong Ploy?

Is hype and hoopla around Chiranjeevi’s entry into politics just a ploy by Congress government in the State? Yes, say, some political observers. They said that the entire fracas that surrounded Kasu Prasada Reddy, an eye specialist, is a storm in tea cup.

Many may not agree with this, but the story goes like this: Prasada Reddy who is equally close to both Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy as well as Chiranjeevi wanted to know the pulse of public on the mega star’s entry into politics, and if possible to assess its impact on the ruling Congress fortunes in coming polls.

For this, he has selected a small group of lower rung reporters and invited them to a star hotel at Begumpet for a talk. But, descended there were some senior political reporters who wasted no time in highlighting the story in a big way, making it to banner headlines next day.

NTV, in which a minister from Telangana is stated to have some share, promptly sensationalized the story, by putting it in scroll, throughout the day. This was taken by other channels too, which were badly waiting for a breaking story. So is the case with other major Telugu dailies.

Now, the story is simple. The actor issued a press release urging his fans to keep quiet, till he announced it officially, and the eye specialist is incommunicado to media, after chided by YSR, and the media struggling to sustain its story.

Meanwhile, the minister and the CM are happy that the entire episode has done a big benefit for them; to make people divert their attention from various scams and misdeeds of government. Poor TDP and other parties are left in lurch as they do not know what is going to happen to them now.