The Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy appears to be going all-out to stall or at least delay bifurcation of the state.
The latest weapon in his armour is proroguing the State Assembly. Once the Assembly is prorogued, the powers to convene it again will rest with the Chief Minister. At present, the Assembly is not prorogued though its last sitting concluded in June this year.
The prorogue issue is becoming a contentious one with the Chief Minister insisting on the House to be prorogued immediately so that he can take his own sweet time to reconvene and delay the consideration of the draft Telangana bill which the President Pranab Mukherjee is expected to send in the last week of this month.
Since the UPA government is keen on introducing the bill in the Parliament before the conclusion of its winter session in December, the Chief Minister's latest strategy is to delay convening the Assembly session and thereby possibly stall the division process.
However, his strategy has brought him in direct confrontation with the Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar who wants to retain the power to convene the House at a short notice.
Once the House is prorogued, it will be up to the Chief Minister and his cabinet to decide when the House should be convened and make recommendation to the Governor accordingly.
The Governor will, in turn, issue notification summoning the Assembly.
Kiran's camp is of the view that if the Assembly session is delayed, then the Telangana road map drawn up by the UPA government will miss its deadline. It is said that the Chief Minister is miffed with the Speaker for not responding to the government's letter requesting for proroguing the Assembly.
