Top brass of Cong, TDP face renewed challenges from their anti-Telangana leaders
The in-house crisis of the two main parties of Andhra Pradesh — the Congress and Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) — continues to boil over the Centre’s move to create a separate Telangana state. The top brass of both the parties today faced renewed challenges from their anti-Telangana leaders, while efforts to appease them also gained momentum.
After a series of meetings in Delhi between the Congress brass and its non-Telangana MPs, Andhra Pradesh Congress chief D Srinivas today appealed to the MLAs to withdraw their resignations. Worried that the revolt may lead to a constitutional crisis for the six-month-old Congress government in the state, the APCC president said: “MLAs should withdraw their resignations to avoid any constitutional crisis.”
In the 294-member Andhra Pradesh Assembly, 135 MLAs have submitted their resignation letters to the Speaker. Of them, 79 are from the Congress, 42 from the TDP and 16 from Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party.
In the TDP camp, some MLAs from coastal Andhra have started hunger strike just the way Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K Chandrasekhara Rao did, against the proposal to create a separate state. TDP MLA D Uma-Maheswara Rao today led an indefinite hunger strike.
Mounting counter-pressure on the Congress high command, Vijayawada MP L Rajagopal, who had submitted his resignation over the Telangana issue, today challenged the party to bring a resolution for Telangana in the Assembly. “All 225 Congress MLAs will oppose the resolution in the Assembly. Andhra will speak in one voice. Telangana means a region of Telugu-speaking people. We don’t want to weaken the Telugu-speaking states,” he said.
Chief Minister K Rosaiah, who faces resignation threats from at least 20 ministers known to be loyal to late chief minister Y S R Reddy, today said, any pro-Telangana resolution would be difficult to pass and could lead to more agitation. “I have told the high command to move a resolution and to pass it will be very difficult. More agitation will take place,” he told reporters.
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But the Congress leadership in Delhi is confident that the infighting within the party will soon be over. “Talks are on with the agitating ministers in the Rosaiah Cabinet. The problem will be resolved soon,” said a central minister involved in the current crisis management.
The Congress has also received flak from its ally in Tamil Nadu — the DMK — for the Telangana feud. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said: “The Centre need not have first delayed its decision over Telangana and then gone ahead hastily.”
PTI adds: With the Telangana issue opening a floodgate of demands for creation of smaller states, the Congress party seems to have developed cold feet on the setting up of a second States Reorganisation Commission. “At the moment, the issue is Telangana and there is no need to expand it into the larger issue of other states, which is not a matter of automatic equivalence,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said today when asked if the party was in favour of setting up a second States Reorganisation Commission. “Let us first deal with this (Telangana) and not go into other issues,” he added.