South Central 42: Kavitha’s exit from BRS, states push back on GST

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South Central

South Central 42: Kavitha’s exit from BRS, states push back on GST

The podcast that delves into the stories shaping southern India.

By:Dhanya Rajendran & Pooja Prasanna

Date:

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In this week’s South Central, hosts Dhanya Rajendran and Pooja Prasanna discuss K Kavitha’s suspension and resignation from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) after she claimed that her cousins Harish Rao and Santosh were responsible for corruption in the Kaleshwaram project. They are joined by political and policy consultant Tara Krishnaswamy and senior journalist & Mahua Media founder C Vanaja.

Tara points out how women in politics are deliberately sidelined not for lack of ability, but precisely because they’ve shown they can match and even exceed the benchmarks men are judged by, “It happens when women that are strong, capable women in politics… when they’ve gone beyond proving their toughness, gone beyond proving their competence, gone beyond winning an election. At that point, they’ve become such challengers to the male establishment that there is no longer even an excuse needed to keep them out of power.”

Vanaja adds that this is rooted in Telangana’s political culture. “That way, KCR, and for that matter the entire Velama clan, is very, very patriarchal. They kind of follow Janana-Mardana, the Dora family mindset of Telangana. They don’t think women should be in the forefront and leading politics; they should be at home. When they came to power, it was very clear that they did not want Kavitha to be part of the power. They didn’t give her the MLA ticket. Instead, they gave her an MP ticket so that she would be kept away.”

Pooja points out that this sidelining of women is not limited to Telangana. “Look at the women politicians in India today. Supriya Sule is in parliament because she had to make space for Ajit Dada in Maharashtra. The same was tried with KK Shailaja to pack her off to Delhi so the men in Kerala feel safe and not threatened by her. The same was done with Kanimozhi. And this is a pattern.”

In the second half of the episode, the panel turns to the new GST slabs announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. While the Union government calls it a simplification meant to boost consumption, states are worried about what it means for their fiscal space and autonomy.

Pooja Prasanna explains the core imbalance: “The states have the burden of administration. They have the responsibility of funding everything, right? But the tax is collected by the Union and then it is disbursed to the states. That is where the issue is. The states are saying that we cannot continue administration if this is the kind of loss that we have to incur. There are multiple states that have been talking about this, the only difference is which states have the luxury of being vocal about it and which have not been.”

Dhanya Rajendran underlines how this erodes federalism itself: “So if a Karnataka government or a Telangana government, Kerala, Tamil Nadu thinks that their priority, like Tara said, is on better health care, better education, better opportunities for women, and that is something that the government ruling at the union level does not agree with, then you deprive that state of the funds to fulfill that program. And that’s what we’ve seen happening.”

Tara Krishnaswamy points to the larger fiscal stress driving these changes: “Now, forty eight thousand crore is the estimated loss that the union government itself has said due to this Trump tariff business. And they believe that between consumption and compliance, they will be able to compensate for it. Now, when you reduce taxes, the ramification is that the states’ share of taxes will also go down accordingly because there’s less taxes being collected. And already, the states are suffering from lack of getting enough revenues, both through the GST itself and also those end-of delays and defaults in compensation.”

All this and more – tune in.

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Audio Timecodes

00:00:00- Announcement

00:01:28 - Gauri Lankesh

00:04:41- Headlines

00:10:13 - Kavitha’s BRS Exit

00:45:40- New GST Regime

01:05:47 - Letters

1:07:25 - Recommendations