Jagan, Naidu on an equal footing?

So, what do you think the next AP elections are going to be all about? What are going to be the dominant issues? Who would be picking what talking points? What are the media debates around these going to be?

No doubt, it is too early to mull over the matters. But, the conclusive nature of the submission of the Centre in the Rajya Sabha as a reply to a question by the YSRCP Member, Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose, more than settles the issue. For, the Union Minister of Water Resources, Rao Inderjith Singh, minced no words in letting the cat out of the bag regarding the Polavaram Project completion. This one may not be completed by the 2024 deadline too. The State government has been claiming that it would speed up the project works all these days.

Last monsoon, an unforeseen problem cropped up with the officials discovering that the project had a faulty design, it is said. The Chief Minister, Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, in his Powerpoint presentation in the Assembly over the same blamed the erstwhile TDP government for hastily clearing the project designs. He explained how Naidu gave approval for building the spillway in June 2019 without completing the approach channel. In fact, the approach channel was completed by the present government in August 2022. Because of the same, the diaphragm wall has suffered extensive damage. The Centre then rushed a team of experts to evaluate the situation. It was discovered that the river was made to pass through two narrow gaps of 380 meters and 300 meters each. The downstream cofferdam was restricted to 680 meters and 120 meters – a move that risked the lives of thousands residing on the banks of the river.

Though the government claims now that it would complete the project, the Centre is categorical in its reply that this may not be the case. So, Polavaram cannot be the focal point of YSRCP's next election campaign. At the most it can refer to it to accuse the TDP of various things and similarly the TDP too could make it one of its campaign planks. Anyway, both the parties would be on an equal footing on this count.

Special Category Status and the failure of the TDP government was used by Jagan Mohan Reddy extensively in the 2019 campaign. He is on a weak footing now with the SCS getting obliterated by the Centre in the face of the 14th Finance Commission. This one is also of no use to Jagan. Capital city Amaravati is the third major issue that hogged limelight the last time. It was anyway the dream of the then Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu. Jagan Mohan Reddy stalled its work and proposed three Capitals to decentralise development. As of now there is nothing for either party to boast about.

Tabula rasa or otherwise, a clean slate is all that they have which lends no advantage to anyone. It then becomes necessary for the political parties to bank on negative campaigns alone. So, it has to be in 2024. All the three major subjects – three dreams of the people of Andhra Pradesh – lie shattered today.

As a residual State, AP had begun at the bottom of prosperity and with a negative balance sheet following the bifurcation. The financial parameters of Andhra Pradesh looked worrisome during 2014-15, the first year after bifurcation with the fiscal deficit at 6.1 per cent, double the ceiling of 3 per cent stipulated under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. The State registered a revenue deficit of Rs 24,194 crore during 2014-15 after eight consecutive years of revenue surplus, according to the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on State Finances. The fiscal deficit stood at Rs 31,717 crore. The State's total liabilities shot up to 32.03 per cent of GSDP, against a ceiling of 27.6 per cent prescribed in the FRBM Act.

Today it is a debt ridden economy with Rs 4 lakh crore or so of borrowings. A study, published in the June edition of the Reserve Bank of India's monthly bulletin, identified five states as fiscally vulnerable due to their high debt levels. These are Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The study group was guided by deputy governor Michael Patra.

Some of these states breached either one or both the targets for debt and fiscal deficit for 2020-21 set by the 15th Finance Commission due to economic contraction and depressed tax collections. The study also noted that the share of revenue expenditure in total expenditure in these states was 80-90 per cent, which leaves them with little resources for capital expenditure or asset creation.

The study also measured the vulnerability of the States. As for AP, its debt ratio to the GSDP is all set to grow to 33.9 per cent. It will be 32.8 per cent by the next fiscal. Though Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh are also listed along with AP in the stressed states list, their fiscal vulnerability is not going to be as bad as that of Andhra Pradesh.

So, what do the main players brag about in the 2024 general elections? There is no 'naming and shaming' in politics as the politicians are above such sensitivities. Campaign of sludge and muck all the way? Right?