Hyderabad: Telangana’s allegation that neighbour Andhra Pradesh copied its ease of doing business data might be a subject of debate, but one trend has clearly emerged over the past two years. The chief ministers of the two states have been, deliberately or unwittingly, imitating each other in areas ranging from political strategy to government policy and even personal lifestyle.

Take the most recent example.

Andhra Pradesh’s door-to-door survey to map out the socio-economic profile of its population is reminiscent of a survey conducted by Telangana in 2014, soon after its chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, KCR for short, came to power. Andhra Pradesh’s survey, which began on Friday is, however, spread over 22 days unlike Telangana’s one-day survey.

While Telangana enlisted 369,000 enumerators to survey around 10.9 million households in a single day, N. Chandrababu Naidu’s government will collect socioeconomic data of 14.8 million households over 22 days with the help of 30,000 enumerators.

Both KCR and Naidu have stated that the aim of their surveys, which came under criticism, was to plug leakages in the system so as to deliver welfare schemes better.

The similarities extend to other areas of policymaking as well.

Both chief ministers are constructing affordable double bedroom houses for the poor.

Both states are aggressively chasing the same set of investors. Phone makers such as Micromax Informatics Ltd and Celkon Impex Pvt. Ltd were wooed by both the state governments to promote electronics manufacturing. Both Celkon and Micromax ended up buying land at concessional prices to set up assembly units in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

From renewable energy projects to electronics, hardware to pharmaceuticals, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are eyeing big ticket investments in these sectors.

The trend of copying each other began even before Naidu and KCR came to power.

In the run-up to assembly elections in 2014, Naidu and KCR, the two future chief ministers, aggressively promoted controversial farm loan waivers, which won them wide support among farmers across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The commonalities in the two chief ministers are understandable because the two states were a single entity until two years ago, when Telangana was carved out of erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh, one analyst said.

“The political situation in both states is very similar. It was a common political unit till recently. That legacy will continue for some time," said political analyst and editor of Hans India newspaper K. Nageshwar.

It is not just policymaking. The two chief ministers are also adopting similar political strategies to keep the opposition under check.

Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) began actively poaching opposition legislators since February, when it lost Hyderabad civic body polls to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). Following the strategy of KCR, Naidu wooed away 21 legislators of YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), the main opposition party in Andhra Pradesh. In the two years since he came to power, KCR orchestrated the defections of 25 members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) from different opposition parties—TDP, YSRCP, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Communist Party of India (CPI).

The two chief ministers also have similar lifestyles.

Andhra Pradesh’s government placed an order for a ₹ 5 crore luxury bus for its chief minister last year after KCR ordered a landmine-proof, bulletproof bus. Incidentally, both of them placed the order with same bus maker, Chandigarh-based JCBL Ltd.

Telangana’s KCR has plans to build a new secretariat in Hyderabad, mirroring Naidu’s efforts to build a new capital, including a secretariat, in Amaravati.

KCR sees the need for a new secretariat because the current one, according to him, does not have proper vastu, another obsession of the two chief ministers.

Naidu splurged ₹ 30 crore of taxpayer money in 2014 to refurbish two of his offices in Hyderabad to comply with vastu, the ancient system of architecture.

“Both Naidu and Chandrashekar Rao were politically close at one point of time," Nageshwar pointed out. KCR served as transport minister in Naidu’s cabinet in 1996 and was the deputy speaker of the state assembly from 2000-01 before he quit the TDP to start the TRS.

“Chandrashekar Rao was a product of Chandrababu Naidu’s leadership," Nageshwar said. “Obviously, there are a lot of commonalities."

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Share Via