Taking a leaf out of Congress playbook of regional polarisation, Telangana Congress president A Revanth Reddy recently fanned ‘North-South’ divide in his attempt to rundown chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao. Reddy claimed that KCR had a Bihari DNA in him and is running the state with the help of Bihari officers like chief secretary Somesh Kumar and acting DGP Anjani Kumar.
The remarks were made in response to TRS’ decision to rope in poll strategist Prashant Kishor for the 2023 assembly elections and 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Insinuating that KCR is working against the interests of Telangana, Revanth said the CM, who used to rely on his welfare schemes to win him elections, is now seeking help of strategist from Bihar for acing the polls.
“The ancestors of KCR belonged to Bihar, which he himself had admitted in an interview to a television channel in 2008 and that they had migrated to Telangana. KCR, who used to bank on his welfare schemes to win elections, is now taking the help of a political strategist from Bihar in Prashant Kishore,” Revanth said in an official statement released after a meeting held in Secunderabad to review the status of digital membership drive of the party.
Revanth cited the appointments of Somesh Kumar and Anjani Kumar, both of whom are from Bihar, to the post of chief secretary and acting DGP respectively, to back his claim that KCR is employing discriminatory measures against the people of Telangana.
“The top post in state administration, that of the chief secretary has been given to Somesh Kumar who is from Bihar and in charge director general of police Anjani Kumar is also from Bihar. Municipal administration principal secretary Arvind Kumar, Sandeep Kumar Sultania among others— all holding a major chunk of portfolios in the state administration are from Bihar. Our bureaucrats from Telangana like R S Praveen Kumar have been meted out a raw deal,” Revanth was quoted as saying by Times of India.
Continuing his attempt to fuel ‘North-South’ discord, Revanth asked people whether they wanted Telangana state to be governed by a Bihar batch, calling upon the IAS and IPS officers from the state to give up their post and demonstrate to the world the “pourusham of Telangana.”
“You all know how the politics of Bihar is run on the strength of the sword. Violence mars elections. Women cannot venture out safely during night. You all know how bad law and order is in Bihar,” Revanth said, trying to insinuate the consequences of voting KCR back in power.
The Congress playbook of stoking sub-nationalism and polarising the country on regional lines
It is worth noting that Revanth’s chauvinistic remarks came weeks after another Congress leader, Charanjit Singh Channi, made hateful remarks against people from UP, Bihar, while campaigning for assembly elections in Punjab.
“The bhaiyas from UP, Bihar and Delhi come here to live and rule the state, we will not allow them to enter,” Channi said while addressing a public meeting. Notably, ‘Bhaiye’ in Punjabi is a pejorative reference for people of UP and Bihar. While Channi was promising to evict people from UP and Bihar, Priyanka Gandhi was standing by his side unflustered and instead, cheering the Punjab CM on his comments.
Her brother, Rahul Gandhi, too has a storied history of stoking regional polarisation in a desperate bid to reverse his sagging political fortunes. In February 2021, the Gandhi scion on his visit to Kerala insulted the voters of Amethi, his former constituency from where he was defeated by BJP’s Smriti Irani in 2019 General elections.
Addressing the public in Trivandrum, Kerala, the senior Congress leader said that “people in Kerala are interested in issues and not just superficially but going into detail in issues”. One was left to wonder whether Rahul Gandhi was insinuating that the people in the North are not as serious and informed as the people of the South.
Approximately a year before that, Rahul Gandhi attacked North Indian states claiming that they had emasculated Panchayati Raj. In April 2020, Rahul Gandhi had said that North Indian states are not empowering people as much as the South Indian states, because the North Indian states believe more in centralisation of power while South Indian states believe in ideas like Panchayati Raj.
More recently, in February 2022, Rahul Gandhi was accused of stoking sub-nationalism when he ignited a massive debate in the country by questioning the very idea of India as a ‘nation’. Speaking in the Parliament on the motion of thanks to President’s Address in Lok Sabha, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi claimed that India was just a “union of states” and not as a nation.
