Chandrababu Naidu's date with "inner engineering"
Starting today, for the next three days, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu will be in a different zone. In fact, not just Naidu but the entire political power structure of Andhra Pradesh, will be meditating and doing yoga under the guidance of spiritual guru Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. The session on "inner engineering for joyful living" is expected to give tips on how to increase the happiness quotient.
In fact, Naidu who finds himself boxed into a corner, may just need this government-sponsored path to destress and seek peace of mind. His government has stopped all payments to contractors for development projects in Andhra Pradesh. Biting this bullet was less bitter for Naidu, as it would have been political suicide to exercise the other option - to default on salaries to 5.67 lakh government employees, a whopping Rs 2,500 crore every month.
Not that the situation is of Naidu's making. It is an inheritance of burden, brought upon him by the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. After the split, when the accounts of united Andhra Pradesh were bifurcated, Telangana state had a surplus revenue of over Rs 3,555 crore for 2014-15 while the 13 district new Andhra Pradesh had a revenue deficit of Rs 15,691 crore. That figure is likely to touch Rs 20,000 crore by the end of this financial year.
Nature and circumstances haven't been easy on Andhra Pradesh either. Cyclone Hudhud which flattened the state's largest city of Visakhapatnam in October, burnt a hole of Rs 21,908 crore in the state exchequer. Prime Minister Narenda Modi's help of Rs 1,000 crore was like a miserly drop in the Indian Ocean.
To add to its woes, all the energies of the Naidu administration have been focussed on acquiring land for the state capital in the Vijayawada-Guntur belt. The farmers have been reluctant to part with their fertile land for a song and leader of Opposition Jaganmohan Reddy's promise to return the land to the farmers if he comes to power in 2019, has only set the cat among the pigeons and added to the confusion.
Naidu has been busy jet setting, trying to rope in international interest in building Andhra Pradesh but lack of spending power could prove to be his Achilles' heel. Even though the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had promised "special status" for Andhra Pradesh, opposition from other more backward states means that the status is unlikely to be bestowed on Andhra Pradesh now. What the government is hoping is that at least some elements of a special status state will be granted, minus the tag. But the fact that New Delhi is dragging its feet on it, is testing Naidu's patience.
Naidu knows Rome wasn't built in a day but then he has to also show results to the voters of Andhra Pradesh, who have been building castles in the air.