Telangana spurs new state demands Andhra govt in crisis

The Centre’s decision to carve out Telangana from Andhra Pradesh may have defused the potentially explosive situation developing in the state, but it has also plunged the Congress government there into another crisis.

On Thursday, several ruling party legislators opposing the creation of the new state resigned, bringing the K Rosaiah government into a minority.

In New Delhi, the Congress’s central leadership, including Sonia Gandhi, worked overtime to convince MPs from Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra Pradesh that a resolution for the creation of Telangana would not be moved in the state assembly till a concensus is evolved within and outside the party.

At the last count, 53 Congress MLAs, mostly from Rayalaseema and Andhra regions, had submitted their resignations to speaker Kiran Kumar Reddy. They were followed by at least 29 MLAs of the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and 11 MLAs of Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajam Party (PRP).

“We were shocked at the way the high command took an arbitrary decision to form Telangana. We can’t go to our constituencies at this point since the people of our region are aggrieved at the developments. All of us are left with no option but to put in our papers before going back to our places,” Veera Siva Reddy, an MLA from Rayalaseema, said.

In fact, Rayalaseema is one region that was always in control of former chief minister
YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s family. The defiance from the region this time has reportedly shocked the high command.

The speaker said none of the resignations has been accepted so far. “I don’t have the region-wise break-up of the resignations received so far. There is a procedure for approving them and I don’t have to share the details with the media at this point,” he said.
Legislators of other parties, which had pledged to support any measure the government took to create Telangana, also showed their dissent against the formation of the new state.
“It is a fact that we supported the Telangana demand. But we told the Congress that our party would support the resolution that would be brought to the state assembly for the creation of Telangana. However, without going through that process, the Congress government at the Centre has declared that the process for creation of the state would be set in motion,” TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu said.

Both Naidu and PRP chief Chiranjeevi are trying hard to convince their party MLAs to withdraw their resignations.

The Congress has 156 MLAs in the 294-member House. However, with 53 of its legislators resigning, the party’s tally has slipped below the half-way mark of 148.
TDP, the main opposition party, has 92 seats, and its alliance partner in the last elections, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), which is at the forefront of the Telangana movement, could manage only 10.

Interestingly, the Congress MLAs elected from the Telangana region stayed away from the drama. The region has 119 seats, of which the Congress had won 50 while the TDP-TRS combine bagged 49. The CPI and the CPM, which were also sailing with the TDP, won five seats.

The majority of resignations came from Rayalaseema. Some key leaders from Andhra, too, tendered their resignations.

Rayalaseema, a region primarily comprising four districts of Kurnool, Kadapa, Anantapur and Chittoor, has 52 seats. The Congress had won 32, the TDP 17 and the PRP three. The Andhra region has 123 seats, of which 74 went to the Congress, 36 to the TDP and the remaining 13 to the PRP.

Meanwhile, 18 Congress MPs from Rayalaseema and Andhra regions, met party chief Sonia Gandhi to voice their concern. Sonia is learnt to have told them that any decision will be taken only after evolving a consensus.