Winter of discontent

The Telangana cauldron keeps political temperatures high in Dilli despite the winter chill. And, given that the move has triggered a million mutinies in Andhra Pradesh and spun its political class into a vortex of confusion and anger, Dilli finds itself staring at what could be a long winter of discontent. Like in all such issues, rumour mills are working overtime, with various theories and predictions doing the rounds.

One strong school of thought has opined that announcing the decision to carve out Telangana is clearly a victory for Jagan Reddy, the political heir of the much-missed formeru00a0Andhra Chief Minister Y S R Reddy.

Jagan's ambitions are no secret and, conspiracy theorists say, his efforts are to destabilise the current 100-day-old government. They claim that this has been his agenda ever since he was denied the top seat.

Interestingly, even as Dilli struggles, one clear winner at this stage is TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao's son, K T Rama Rao who emerged as the spokesperson u2014 unlike his dad, who vacillates between protest and
pusillanimity.

Internal battles

Dilli's year-long obsession with internal security after 26/11 has ensured that Home Minister P Chidambaram has plenty on his hands. He's been busy overseeing the beefing up of India's internal security apparatus to ensure that we are not caught napping again. He proclaimed in Parliament that since the Mumbai massacre, his efforts have helped foil 12 terror attacks. And with the 'surrender' of ULFA leader Arabinda Rajkhowa, his confidence may perhaps be justified in part.

However, the ever-fluent Naxal situation is unlikely to cut the government any slack. Even as the government mounted its biggest ever operation against the Maoists, they've been hitting back as hard as they got.

Although the government may feel hopeful on the ULFA front at present, even that can just as easily turn out to be chimeric. But clearly it's the red terror that is likely to keep Chidambaram on his toes for some time.

Widely regarded as India's 'Image Guru', Dilip Cherian is a lobbyist, celebrity creator and tycoon watcher. He currently parties on a 24/7 schedule that mixes cities, nixes bores, and analyses Dilli