Prime minister Manmohan Singh assured agitated party MPs from the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions that their feelings will be kept in mind before a final decision is taken.
The protests against the creation of Telangana turned violent in many parts of coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema and on the premises of the Andhra Pradesh high court on Friday even as the Congress leadership tried to cool tempers, promising that nothing will be done in haste.
To make matters worse for the government, Union home secretary GK Pillai told reporters in Srinagar that Hyderabad will always remain the capital of Telangana, only to retract the statement later.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh and senior ministers of the Union cabinet assured agitated party MPs from the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions that their feelings will be kept in mind before a final decision is taken.
Senior Congress leaders, including home minister P Chidambaram, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and law minister Veerappa Moily, also swung into action, holding a series of meetings with the protesting MPs.
Mukherjee, the UPA government’s main trouble-shooter, held a separate meeting with Jaganmohan Reddy, urging him to use his influence with MPs and MLAs in the state.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Rosaiah, too, tried to placate the protesters, saying the state government will appoint a committee to elicit the opinion of all stakeholders before moving a resolution in the assembly for the creation of Telangana.
But his government continued to be in a state of crisis with at least 79 party MLAs handing their resignations to the speaker in the last two days. In all, 136 legislators cutting across party lines have resigned in the state.
Congress MP from Vijayawada Lagadapati Rajagopal announced that he will go on an indefinite fast to counter the decision to carve out Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. He also urged parties in the state not to issue a whip to their members to support the resolution for the creation of Telangana.
In Vizag, the anti-Telangana protestors ransacked an HSBC office after the bank opened its branch despite the shutdown call.
Several buses of the state road transport which were carrying passengers to Telangana were also damaged.
Andhra University students took to roads, shouting slogans against the Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekhara Rao. The police had to resort to a mild lathi-charge to control the situation.
Lawyers in the Andhra Pradesh high court in Hyderabad, too, were a divided lot. While the advocates hailing from Andhra region wanted to boycott court proceedings, their counterparts from Telangana resisted their efforts. The result: fist-fights broke out on the court premises and both sides hurled stones at one another.
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