It looks like YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has been proved to be a tough nut to crack for Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
When Jagan took over as the chief minister on May 30, the Telangana chief minister thought he could play the role of a big brother for Andhra since its new chief minister is inexperienced and would listen to a seasoned politician like him.
He used his good offices with spiritual leaders like Swamy Swaroopanandendra Saraswati and Chinna Jeeyar Swamy to influence Jagan.
He went overboard in receiving the Andhra chief minister at Pragati Bhavan and has claimed to have given a lot of tips to run the government. He also invited Jagan to the inauguration of Kaleshwaram.
But five months down the line, KCR has realised that Jagan is too tough a person to be carried away by his sweet talk.
A couple of weeks ago, Jagan sent a strong message to KCR that he cannot be taken for a ride by announcing an independent project to link Godavari river with Krishna, by dumping the proposal of KCR for a joint project.
And in the latest episode, Jagan gave a rude shock by submitting an affidavit in the Supreme Court strongly opposing the Kaleshwaram project.
It was a counter to an affidavit filed by Telangana government opposing Polavaram project and also construction of projects on Krishna river.
Jagan, who made a thorough study of Kaleshwaram project during his visit to the project site in June, understood that it was not only a money-spinner for KCR, but also detrimental to the interests of Andhra.
In the latest affidavit, the Jagan government said the Kaleshwaram project affects its irrigation interests and appealed to the court to prevail upon the Centre not to accord national project status to it.
The Jagan government also exposed how the Telangana government had taken up several projects like Palamuru-Ranga Reddy, Dindi, Sitaramasagar etc in violation of the tribunal awards and also AP Reorganisation Act.
At the same time, it strongly defended the construction of Pattiseema and Polavaram and said Telangana had not nothing to do with these projects.