Is the proposal by the GoM to form a new state -- Rayala Telangana -- with two more districts a political strategy? Vicky Nanjappa finds out
The Centre is under fire for its "political move" of redrawing boundaries to form a new Rayala Telangana state. Vicky Nanjappa speaks to miffed Congress MP Madhu Yashki Goud, Telangana Rashtra Samithi's K T Rama Rao and YSR Congress President Jaganmohan Reddy
The bandh called by Telangana Rashtra Samithi against a reported proposal by the Group of Ministers, appointed to chalk the road map for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, to merge two districts of with the proposed state has hit normal life in the region.
With the Congress top brass in New Delhi likely to take a final call on Friday on the vexed Telangana issue, the development has sparked a flurry of activities in the Andhra Pradesh capital.
Veering towards conceding the demand for a separate Telangana, the Congress has convened a meeting of its working committee, the party's highest policy-making body, on Tuesday after deliberations on the issue in the United Progressive Alliance coordination committee.
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.
The United Progressive Alliance coordination committee will meet on July 31 to finalise its stand on the vexed Telangana issue amid indications from Congress that carving out a separate state out of Andhra Pradesh is a foregone conclusion and that complexities involved in the process will be adequately addressed.
With many of its plans to break the impasse over the Telangana issue coming unstuck, the Congress is now reportedly toying with the idea of moving a resolution on the statehood demand in the next session of Andhra Pradesh assembly.
Political crisis in Andhra Pradesh over the proposed Telangana statehood further deepened on Saturday with 20 ministers resigning for the cabinet.
Members belonging to the ruling Congress and Telugu Desam Party tried to disrupt the customary address by the Governor to the joint session of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature on Monday by raising slogans for and against the bifurcation of the state.
A crucial meeting of the Congress Core Group on Friday will discuss the Telangana issue with "both options open" as a decision "cannot be postponed anymore", said senior party leader Digvijay Singh.
The row kicked up by the ministers of Andhra and Rayala Seema region, who called agitators demanding a separate Telangana state 'anti-national and seditious', intensified on Thursday with pro-Telangana leaders urging the state governor to dismiss these ministers from the cabinet. A delegation of Telangana Rashtra Samiti and Telangana Joint Action Committee, headed by K Chandrasekhara Rao and Professor Kodanda Ram, met Governor ESL Narasimhan at Raj Bhavan.
Congress leaders from Telangana are up in arms against the party high command's choice of four representatives for Tuesday's talks with Union Home Minister P Chidambaram as three of them were from Andhra and Rayala Seema region and known antagonists of a separate state.
A meeting of political leaders from Rayala Seema region, held to discuss the stand to be taken before the Srikrishna Commission on the issue of bifurcation of the state, has sent ripples among the supporters of united Andhra Pradesh. Senior Congress leader and former minister J C Diwakar Reddy has shocked the leaders from coastal Andhra region by suggesting that Rayala Seema should be a part of Telangana rather than Andhra.
Piqued over hints from TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu that he might not be as committed to a separate Telangana state as earlier, several senior party leaders from the region have come out in the open in defiance. On the one hand, TDP legislators in Andhra and Rayala Seema region have gone on fast unto death in protest against Telangana state and more are joining their ranks, the party's legislators from Telangana are threatening to take the warpath.
Further deepening the current crisis in Andhra Pradesh over Telangana, political parties and organisation of students, teachers and intellectuals have formed a new Joint Action Committee to fight to preserve the unity of the state. The new body has called for a bandh on January 4.
The Bharatiya Janata Party would vocally raise coal scam, the alleged misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence Bureau, among other issues during the winter session of Parliament beginning Thursday, senior party leader M Venkaiah Naidu said on Tuesday.
YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy has resigned as Kadapa MP in protest against "unilateral and arrogant posturing" of Congress party on the proposed division of Andhra Pradesh but stopped short of spelling out his party's stand on the statehood issue.
Tension flared up across Andhra Pradesh on Saturday as pro Telangana students of Osmania University in Hyderabad assaulted a group of teachers from Andhra and Rayala Seema regions, who had come to evaluate B.Ed papers.
Andhra Pradesh now faces the specter of President's Rule due to the political instability prevalent in the state with the resignations of a large number of legislators over the Telangana issue, questions are also being asked whether the happenings in Andhra Pradesh cast their shadow on the Manmohan Singh led-United Progressive Alliance government in New Delhi.
Normal life was hit in most parts of Andhra Pradesh as the day-long strike called by the key Opposition Telugu Desam -- in protest against the arrest of its president N Chandrababu Naidu and other party leaders by the Maharashtra police -- evoked a mixed response.
Telugu Desam party is facing a storm in Andhra Pradesh. Within days of party's most influential leader in Telangana region, T Devender Goud, quitting its ranks to form his own party, the TDP has loss yet another strong leader -- this time in the Rayala Seema region.
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