The Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who has revolted against his party’s decision to bifurcate the state, is bracing up for a showdown with the Centre and vowed to “defeat” the resolution on creation of Telangana state whenever it comes up before the Assembly.
A day after the Union cabinet gave its nod for division of AP, the Chief Minister went into a huddle with his ministerial colleagues, MPs, MLAs and MLCs from Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra regions, referred jointly as Seemandhra, to chalk out the next course of action.
Kiran, who belongs to Rayalaseema, is strongly opposed to the division of the state and had gone public with his views opposing the Congress Working Committee’s decision on carving out Telangana state.
The meeting, attended by 18 Seemandhra Ministers, felt that the Telangana resolution should be defeated on the floor of the Assembly whenever it is sent by the Centre for the approval.
According to official sources, the Chief Minister advised his colleagues not to resign at this juncture but to wait for an “opportune time” to make their point clear to the Centre.
“If the Telangana resolution is defeated by the Assembly, it becomes difficult for the Centre to go ahead with the bifurcation process,” Kiran is believed to have told the meeting.
In the 294-member AP Assembly, seemandhra, comprising 13 districts, accounts for 175 MLAs while Telangana region, covering 10 districts and Hyderabad, accounts for 119 MLAs. Given the numbers and the regional divide cutting across party lines, any resolution on the state’s division is bound to be defeated in the House.
However, the AICC leaders had already made it clear that the opinion of the Assembly was not binding on the Centre and that the Parliament alone has the right to create new states.
Significantly, the meeting, held at the Chief Minister’s camp office here, felt that there was no need for any minister or legislator from Seemandhra to resign now.
“We will wait for the Centre to ask us to send a resolution favouring statehood for Telangana. We will then defeat the resolution in the House,” said a senior Minister from Seemandhra Sailajanath.
“No state has been carved out in the history of the country on a defeated resolution. The President then will not allow the Bill to be debated in Parliament. That is the only way in front of us to stop the Telangana process. Let us see how the Parliament would proceed on a defeated resolution”, he said.
The four hour long meeting saw the ministers and legislators criticizing their party high command for keeping the state leadership in the dark about the Union Cabinet’s approval for bifurcation.
