Goud enough to be relevant?

Devender Goud is reputed to be the richest politician in AP and in Ranga Reddy district they speak in tones of awe about his land holdings on the putskirts of Hyderabad. He does not look it though. Diminutive and bookish, he may have overreached himself when he left his no. 2 position in the TDP and struck on a separate Telangana path to found the Nava Telangana Party.

Observers thought it logical that he would ultimately make common cause with K Chandrasekhar Rao of the TRS and forge an effective and united platform for the launch of a new state of Telangana. It did not happen. It was logical but not likely.

Goud is a Goud, a prosperous backward class caste, if that is not a contradiction in terms. KCR is a Velama, a forward caste of fewer numbers. It was never possible that the strongly territorial and imperious KCR would yield a place of honour to the richer and more well-read Goud. He had already shown that he was not a no. 1 who would be comfortable with a powerful no. 2 when he admitted A Narendra, a Padmashali, into the TRS, and then ignored him, forcing him to ultimately leave the party.

Goud would never brook such treatment. Why would he when had not deferred to even the mighty Chandrababu Naidu.

Goud comes from a class of politicians who entered big-time politics when N T Rama Rao founded the TDP and attracted young leaders from newly ambitious castes.  Goud was one of them. Through a series of right moves, and by staying on the right side of the Viceroy Vennupotu, he emerged as Naidu’s no. 2 by the late 1990s. When the Alipiri assassination attempt took place against Naidu in Tirupati in 2003, and for a tense half hour everyone feared the worst, his name was whispered as the successor.

When a rising leader gets to the whispered successor stage, his departure is imminent. Goud could grow no further under that banyan tree. This came home to him in late 2007 when Naidu, now insecure out of power, began sucking up to his brood of brothers-in-law. Goud bid a sad farewell to Naidu over an amicable cup of tea and launched the Nava Telangana Party.

Goud’s calculation was that there was a place for a real, not fake, party of Telangana, and that he had it in him to give coherence to it. He was wrong about the second assumption. Goud is an intelligent man of gentle manners and makes a valiant attempt to speak with passion on public fora. But he’s not a natural like KCR. He can write a fine party manifesto, but cannot shape its destiny.

Nava Telangana never took off.

Stranded in no man’s land, Goud needed to hitch ride. That’s when Chiranjeevi’s loco loco engine chugged up and took him on board. This is a marriage of limited consummation.  Goud is expected to give Chiranjeevi propulsion in parts of Telangana, whose people are notoriously impervious to film star frivolities. In turn, Chiranjeevi’s party would take Goud to the nearest way station.

Goud is still in limbo. He is not yet a mover and shaker in the Praja Rayam, which we now know to be a company of film-making brothers. Goud’s far too ambitious to defer to a fading film star’ with a new-found conscience.  That’s possibly why he has chosen to keep his options open in this election, by choolsing to contest one Parliament seat, Malkajgiri, and one Assembly, Ibrahimpatnam. Given his reputation, a victory in both is expected of him, not by virtue of the support of his film star comrades, but by his own standing in his provinces.

Reports are that it is going to be difficult. Goud is just retracing his steps after taking a blind turn in his career, and he will be lucky if the circumstances of this season do not conspire against him. His opponent in Ibrahimpatnam Assembly is Malreddy Ranga Reddy, another former TDP refugee with a strong hold on the eastern edges of Hyderabad. Goud is seen to be better placed in Malkajgiri LS, which includes his old borough of Medchal and places him against more moderate company.

Goud has never lost an election, an achievement he shares only with YS Rajasekhara Reddy. As a man who has made but one mistake in his career, he will have a limited purpose in this election: to still be in the picture which will allow him time to claw his way back to the centre of things.