Politics and muhurthas help each other in Telugu states. Since politics are not pure and are always mixed with personal interests, practicing pure politics is rare and take the form of development and muhurth as they give an acceptable mask.
Two political muhurthas preferred by Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in recent past bear testimony to this.
Lack of auspicious muthurathas forced the Telugu chief ministers perform pujas prematurely. While governments’ argument is that the lack of auspicious moments after May forced Chandrababu Naidu to inaugurate the interim secretariat which was not even complete 5 per cent, the same exigency reportedly compelled KCR to lay foundation stone for Kaleswaram project.
Kaleswarm has no concurrence from the Maharashtra government, even though KCR paid a visit to Mumbai and met Maha CM Fadnavis.
But, even before he got the nod from Maha government, KCR laid foundation in a spectacular ceremony which impressed his party workers and MLAs to praise him as apara Sir Arthur Cotton, the title Bhagiratha has already been used. So, now he is being praised as second Sir Arthur Cotton and an MLA is reportedly planning a statue of KCR on the banks of Godavari.
But the opposition parties are deriving different meanings into these Muhurthas. According to Congress leaders Naidu is in a hurry to shift the secretariat to Amaravati as early as possible. This is because he wants to show some capital activity in Amaravati areas as original capital is getting delayed causing some consternation among the farmers, who offered land for”pooling”. The real-estate rates are not witnessing a surge as expected because of absence of capital activity.
Shifting capital before 2019 is necessary for Naidu or else any mishap in 2019 election would spell disaster to the capital dream. To create an impression that Capital is ready and convince the people of the areas on this aspect, Naidu organized the inauguration of temporary ‘one-room secretariat’, say Congress leaders.
In the case of Telangana, according to former Karimnagar MP Ponnam Prabhakar, Kaleswaram foundation was laid to create hype during Palair elections time. Already some hype is created by Khammam defections and Kaleswaram will add to it. He alleged that to gain political mileage, KCR ditched even Maharashtra by laying foundation stone, without taking them into confidence. This was only to influence the Palair people, who are going to vote on May 16, in Assembly byelection, he said.
He shows the comments of Maharashtra Water Resources Minister Girish Mahajan against the foundation stone. ” Mahajan is so unhappy at the foundation KCR laid for Kaleswaram that he wants to lodge a complaint with the centre. The Maharashtra minister revealed his displeasure over Telangana government’s move in a meeting held in the Nagapur collector’s office on Wednesday. Media also reported this,” Ponnam said.
According to C Muralidhar, Engineer-in-Cheif (irrigation)Telangana, the CM chose to lay foundation for Kaleswaram even before an MoU with Maharashtra signed because the auspicious period coming to a close.
