MS Shanker : 

Founder President of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao once again reiterated his decision to form a national party to take on the mighty Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headed by the most ‘charismatic’ and ‘popular’ Narendra Modi.

His reiteration comes soon after meeting the former Karnataka Chief Minister D Kumaraswamy of JDS. He decided to float a national party, a couple of months back after holding discussions with the ‘hired’ well-known political strategist Prashant Kishore, who also happens to be the founder of IPac. KCR had also vowed to make India-mukth of the saffron party sooner than later.

He has already met several Opposition parties, including the JDU president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, though he had to face some humiliation during a press conference with the latter refusing to sit and prolong the interaction with the aggressive media which was shooting probing questions.

Yet, credit goes to KCR for triggering the Opposition unity issue as it has become a ‘debating’ or ‘talking point’ among several regional satraps, including NCP’s chief Sharad Pawar, or Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party, or even TMC’s Mamata Banerjee. Though the DMK headed by MK Stalin is not reacted yet it may take a call depending on how the political development pans out ahead of the 2024 general elections. 

Perhaps, it appears in a great hurry, as it wishes to wait till the upcoming state assembly polls during this year-end as well in 2023. More than half a dozen states, including Modi’s native Gujarat, are set to test people’s pulse before 2024.  

The BJP which won four out of five states which went to polls in the beginning of this year looks more than confident to retain Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, which goes to polls in December.

And in 2023, polls are scheduled for Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoram. How far the Opposition parties come together and stall the Modi-Shah juggernaut to roll over, one has to wait and see. To begin winning, the Opposition unity can boast of success, if they succeed to throw the BJP from Gujarat as well as Himachal Pradesh. If they cannot, then the so-called ‘unity’ may fizzle out in the following elections and pave way for BJP to consolidate its position in the Lok Sabha elections that are scheduled to be held in 2024.

How far, KCR’s so-called national party, which has plans to get some of the regional parties to merge, has to wait and watch. Will Kumaraswamy’s JDS will be the first party to merge with KCR’s new national party? Can powerful regional parties, which had absolutely no national ambitions like the DMK the KCR expected to merge? No way. 

So are the other major regional parties, which have some presence in their respective regions like the SP or BSP in Uttar Pradesh, the JDU or RJD in Bihar, NCP or Shiv Sena in Maharashtra or INLD or JJP and SHP in Haryana, SAD in Punjab or NCP or PDP in Jammu & Kashmir.

Moreover, the RJD wanted to project Nitish Kumar as the Opposition’s Prime Ministerial candidate. A desperate Congress is busy re-launching Rahul Gandhi as a possible front-runner considering the dynast's charisma across the country, though appears to be on the decline. 

TMC’s Mamata Banerjee too is equally feels that she is the most competent to be the Opposition’s PM candidate. 

Though, NCP chief Sharad Pawar has declined the offer by some Opposition parties to be their Presidential nominee, may not be disinclined if that offer is made. Even the noise in the DMK cadres over their leader Stalin’s competence is also heard loud and clear.

But, how many of them enjoy the credibility that matches the incredible Narendra Modi? Yet, the Indian electorate is most unpredictable and they may as well be swayed away by freebies. This is evident in the case of Punjab where the AAP swept the recent polls with a massive majority riding high on ‘free power.’

That may be the reason why KCR determined to say that his new national party’s agenda is to remain focused on pro-farmers policies and promising ‘free power and water if it comes to power.  

But, his promises don’t match the statistics available of total power generation in India as well as existing water resources to meet the growing demand with an uncontrollable population explosion.

 Well, India may be the third largest power generation country in the world, having an installed capacity of 403.759 GWTs. 

But, the gross electricity consumption in FY2019 was 1,208 kWh per capita. In FY2015, electric energy consumption in agriculture was recorded as being the highest (17.89%) worldwide. The total Power Generating Capacity of (utilities & non-utilities) has increased from a meager 1362 MW in 1947 to about 448.11 GW at the end of March 2020. The Per Capita Electricity Consumption which was a mere 16.3 units in 1947 has increased to 1208 units in 2019-20. 

Electricity consumption per capita reached 970 kWh in 2021, about a third of the Asian average. Total energy consumption reached 927 Mtoe in 2021 (+4.7%), which is still 1.2% below the 2019 level. It increased rapidly from 2010-2019 (4%/year).

As far as water resources in India is concerned, according to Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog in August 2021, 1st in India the annual available water after evapotranspiration is 1999 billion cubic meters (bcm), of which the utilizable water potential is estimated at 1122 bcm. India is the largest groundwater user in the world, with an estimated usage of around 251 bcm per year, more than a quarter of the global total. With more than 60 percent of irrigated agriculture and 85 percent of drinking water supplies dependent on it and growing industrial/urban usage, groundwater is a vital resource. It is projected that the per capita water availability will dip to around 1400 cum in 2025, and further down to 1250 cum by 2050.

Against that backdrop, will there be any takers of KCR’s promises of ‘free power and water”? More so, what if his party loses power in the next year's assembly polls?