Biju Janata Dal members had staged a walk-out while NDA ally Shiv Sena did not participate in the voting.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh and several Congress leaders are against the formation of a separate state but are supporting the decision in the hope that it would win the party seats in the region. Renu Mittal reports
Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley speaks on the debate on the Andhra Pradesh (Reorganisation) Bill, 2014
The Bharatiya Janata Party might have a majority in the Lok Sabha but sarcasm and public humiliation of rivals may not be the way to assert this. In fact, it is a waste of time
Raising the issue in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, Naidu said, "What Shah wrote is a pack of lies and half-truths. It is not only insulting but also provoking the people of AP. It lacked any dignity."
The opposition has been protesting over various issues, including the Punjab National Bank scam, since Monday when Parliament had reconvened after a month-long recess in the Budget session.
It is likely to take at least six months for the proposed new state of Telangana to see the light of the day as the move involves a number of steps, including adoption of state re-organisation bill by Parliament by a simple majority.
BJP sources said their party has consistently maintained that while it is committed to the formation of a separate state of Telangana, it also wanted the concerns of the Seema-Andhra region to be adequately addressed. Oddly enough, Sushma Swaraj did not press this issue in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Anita Katyal reports.
The Group of Ministers constituted for the creation of a separate state of Telangana on Wednesday discussed the sharing of river water and irrigation resources in Andhra Pradesh after the state's bifurcation, but failed to arrive at a resolution.
A top Home Ministry official said no note has been prepared yet to be placed before tomorrow's scheduled meeting of the Cabinet to be chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The Union home minister said he firmly believed that Article 370 that gave the special status to Jammu and Kashmir should be removed as it was not beneficial to the country.
Raising the pitch of his attack on Centre, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy today challenged it to place the AP Reorganisation Bill 2013 in Parliament in the same form it was referred to the state Legislature.
Legislators from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions did not allow the Andhra Pradesh assembly to transact business when the winter session resumed on Friday as they remained firm on their demand that the Centre drop the move to bifurcate the state.
Andhra leaders are readying for a stormy session over Telangana tomorrow. Vicky Nanjappa reports
His announcement came amid indications that the TDP, which recently pulled out its ministers from the Narendra Modi government, was toying with the idea of quitting the NDA.
'Modi's idea of India is to make it less liberal, less tolerant and a less accommodative of diversity.' 'We are headed, if Modi continues, to become an ill liberal democracy.' 'Modi is not Vajpayee. Vajpayee was fundamentally decent, tolerant and fair. He played by the rules of the game. Modi is a different story.'
Hitting out at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy for rejecting the AP Reorganisation Bill, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi on Thursday said the move cannot stop formation of Telangana.
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The Indian government has paid Cairn Energy Plc Rs 7,900 crore to refund taxes it had collected to enforce a retrospective tax demand, ending a seven-year-old dispute that had tarred the country's image as an investment destination. The company, which is now known as Capricorn Energy PLC, in a statement said it has received "net proceeds of $1.06 billion", of which nearly 70 per cent will be returned to the shareholders. The tax department had used a 2012 legislation, which gave it powers to go back 50 years and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India, to seek Rs 10,247 crore in taxes from Cairn.
Since Parliament is still in session, the government refrained from making an official statement but the ministers said there were ample 'precedents by the Congress governments in the past' of Bills being pushed through the ordinance route.
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India's fear of small states derives from memories of Partition and the paranoid view that it will break up under 'too many' states. It's time to shed such fears and bite the 'states' reorganisation' bullet. India won't crumble under a few more Telanganas, Vidarbhas or Gorkhalands, says Praful Bidwai.
The UPA managers feel the remaining phase of the Winter Session of Parliament, which will be dominated by the Telangana issue, may actually end up as a repeat of previous sessions. Anita Katyal reports.
During the 16th Lok Sabha, 180 bills were passed and 45 ordinances promulgated.
'The feeling in Telangana is that without her a separate state cannot be created... All the MPs and MLAs from Seema-Andhra have a business background. Their interest is to save their business,' Congress MP K Raj Gopal Reddy, who played a key role in Thursday's turbulent events, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Hyderabad, which would be the joint capital of Telangana and the Andhra region for 10 years, could be modelled after Delhi where law and order is handled by the Centre, Congress leader Digvijay Singh has said.
Attacking Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi without naming, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said that he should spell out his views on "substantial" issues as sentimental ones were of no consequence.
The Telangana Group of Ministers on Friday reviewed the progress made by the Andhra Pradesh government with regards to the bifurcation of the state on various fronts.
Rajya Sabha will sit for late hours in last week of the first half of the budget session from Monday to clear the pending legislative and other businesses.
Clarifies over the raging media controversy over its intent to exit
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, a strong political stakeholder in Hyderabad, has expressed apprehensions that the central government was contemplating giving the city the status of an Union Territory while creating Telangana state and warned that the party will fight tooth and nail against any such move.
With reports suggesting a rift between the Congress and its ally Nationalist Congress Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday dubbed the United Progressive Alliance as a "sinking ship" which is being deserted by its allies.
Ministers from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions, including Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, of Andhra Pradesh are likely to resign from their posts en masse as soon as the ongoing debate on the draft AP Reorganisation Bill-2013 concludes.
With almost 300 seats to the Lok Sabha being dominated by regional outfits, the Congress has added to the list by giving space to more regional forces in the Seema-Andhra and Telangana regions, says Saroj Nagi.
Fortune favours the brave and he has done well by taking risks and winning it all, says Aditi Phadnis.
Harsh Sethi, consulting editor of Seminar magazine, is an analyst who is always lucid and sharp in his commentaries on human rights and development and issues related to politics or nation building. In a rare interview to rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt he spoke on the broader issues related to Congress party's endorsement to a separate Telangana state.
Daggubati Purandeswari is the only Union minister to have joined the BJP this election. 'Everybody knows Dr Manmohan Singh is a man of great integrity and I consider it an honour to have worked with him,' Purandeswari, the BJP candidate from Rajampeta, Andhra Pradesh, tells A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com
In a television interview, Union minister Jairam Ramesh claimed that a state of UP's size was ungovernable
However, the Telangana statehood was not even on the agenda of the assembly which reconvened on Thursday morning.
The Home Minister said creating a new state normally takes a period of eight to nine months but the central government would try its best to do it as early as possible.
State Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu also told reporters that TDP has decided to 'expose' the Centre on what it has done or not done to the state -- as promised in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 -- by putting out relevant facts and figures before the people.
A senior company executive said the company waited for seven years for the verdict and its shareholders needed to know when it would be concluded.
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