Efforts are on to bring protogonists of smaller states on a common platform to launch a country-wide movement for a second reorganisation of states.
Towards this end, a convention to form the basis for a national dialogue on small states will be held in Hyderabad on July 19.
To be opened by Jat leader Ajit Singh, the convention will be attended by leaders who are in the forefront of the agitation for 13 new states - Telangana, Uttarakhand, Doab, Chhattisgarh, Purvanchal, Bodoland, Gorkhaland, Saurashtra, Vidarba, Bundelkhand, Malwa, Panchal and Jharkhand.
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The convention will be followed by the setting up, the next day, of an all party coordination committee to draw up an action plan for the formal launching of a popular movement in favour of the Telangana state.
Originally, it was proposed to form a new political party - a third force vis-a-vis the Congress and Telugu Desam to espouse the cause of Telangana.
But since several academicians have also lent support to the movement and as Congressmen are deeply involved, a coordination committee is being thought of.
Earlier this week, the state unit of the BJP also lent support to the formation of a separate Telangana state. The Peoples War Group of the Naxalites, which is virtually running the administration in four districts of Telangana, has also supported the separation demand.
According to the states former home minister and senior Congress leader K Prabhakara Reddy, ex-Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh Konda Madhav Reddy, three former Vice Chancellors Prof. Jaishankar, Prof. Malla Reddy and Dr. Basheeruddin and seven Congress members of Parliament from Andhra Pradesh have extended full support to the separation movement.
Currently, some of the pro-separation leaders led by former general secretary of the NTR-TDP, P Indra Reddy, are touring the Telangana region in a bid to explain the injustice done to the region by successive governments and seek popular support to the movement. Indra Reddy recently resigned primary membership of the NTR-TDP to devote full time to the Telangana movement.
Senior Congress member of Lok Sabha, M Baga Reddy, maintains that though some development did take place in Telangana after Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1956, but the fruits of such development have gone only to Andhras.
Irrigation, power, industry, education and employment were core areas where all development remained in the Andhra region, to the disadvantage of Telangana, he said in an interview.
K Prabhakar Reddy, who was the first to renew the demand for separate Telangana, two months ago said the movement this time will be on peaceful lines, unlike in 1969 when it was violent.
We are seeking a tearless separation. Let the ruling Telugu Desam remain in power in Telangana also, since they have 87 out of the 107 legislators in the region.Our movement is not for power, but only for justice for the region, Prabhakar Reddy told Business Standard.
Meanwhile, the proposed movement received adverse reaction from the Andhra region.
Former minister Madala Janakiram, who had spearheaded the separate Andhra movement in 1971, said the six-point formula, which provides certain safeguards to Telangana, had done immense injustice to the Andhra region.
I feel the time has come when the people of Andhra Pradesh should either stay united by scrapping the zonal restrictions (which bans people of one region seeking job in another or inter-zonal transfers) or separate by forming two states on a friendly note, he said. Janakiram said oft-repeated demands for separate Telangana gives an impression in other parts of the state that Andhrites who settled in Telangana, because of the states capital being in that region, had a vested interest.
Let the people understand that we have no such vested interests in staying together. If the demand for a separate state is genuine, the political leaders should think of ways to mount pressure on the Centre instead of launching agitations, he said.