Telangana could lead to further division of state – SA politicians

Seemandhra Congress leaders on Wednesday met with AICC general secretary, in-charge of Andhra Pradesh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and pleaded with him to keep the state united, stating that the creation of the separate state of Telangana would engender demands for a separate Rayalaseema and North Andhra states as well.

Ghulam Nabi Azad clarified that this was only a preliminary meeting and is expected to hold three more such meetings. Sources said that as the meeting saw discussion mainly on the unity of the Telugu people, the AICC general secretary asked the leaders to come prepared on the status of Hyderabad and water related issues, the next time. “Next time I will ask questions and you have to give convincing answers,” Azad told the meeting, according to a minister in the delegation.

In an interesting turn of events, the 23-member delegation reportedly backed the state government’s decision on the need to repeal the 14F Clause from the Presidential Order of 1975.

In the three-hour long meeting, the leaders tried to debunk the theories of injustice done to Telangana by presenting historical and statistical documents in support of the contrary. Senior MP Kavuri Sambasiva Rao explained how the arguments being put forth to buttress the demand for a separate Telangana were wrong.

“We have explained how the nation is being misguided by Telangana leaders, who are saying that Telangana was colonized by the rich from Seemandhra,” said state Law minister E Pratap Reddy.

Stating that in recent times nearly 52 lac people had migrated to Hyderabad and its surrounding areas, Pratap Reddy said you could brand all these people migrated to Hyderabad for livelihood as capitalists. “The result of the migration is that Telangana gained 12 assembly seats and we lost,” he added.

Pratap Reddy who represents the Srisailam constituency said it was Telangana which was the principal beneficiary of the state policies on irrigation. “Since 1956, the irrigation in Telangana has increased by 420 per cent, as compared to the increase in Rayalaseema which is just 50 per cent,” he said, adding that Rayalaseema should get a financial package first if centre is keen to mitigate backward areas.

Emerging from the meeting, another minister S Sailajanath also said the delegation had thoroughly disproved the arguments in favour of a Telangana separate state. “We have been successful in driving home that division of the state would hurt all regions,” he said, adding that they had presented a comparative study of several sectors such as irrigation, population, jobs, etc upto the district level. Regarding Rayalaseema, he said it should be accorded top priority, as the region lost Bellary district and its capital Kurnool.

He said two representations, one for Rayalaseema and the other for the coastal regions had been presented to Azad.

Azad asked the Rayalaseema leaders to meet him separately with their requests and arguments in favour of a united Andhra Pradesh. Some Rayalaseema leaders reportedly also presented Azad with a Rayalaseema map to examine the feasibility of carving out another separate state.

The 23-member team of MPs, MLAs and MLCs consisted of seven ministers S Sailajanath, E Pratap Reddy, G Aruna, T G Venkatesh, A Ahmadullah, P Bala Raju and K Parthasarathi.

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