Telangana Bill tabled in AP Assembly, chaos in House; CM just can't stomach it
Hyderabad: The historical AP Reorganisation Bill 2013 to carve out Telangana state was placed in the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly for 'expressing their views', on Monday.
Copies of the Bill were circulated to members following instructions from President Pranab Mukherjee, who had asked the House to send its views before January 23.
Amidst shouting of slogans by members, the Speaker announced the receipt of the Bill from the President and the Assembly secretary read out the President’s covering letter.
Also read: Telangana Bill in Assembly, Seemandhra boils
It was chaos after that as members cutting across party lines and regions trooped into the well of the House. The Assembly witnessed perhaps its noisiest scenes ever as members jostled each other, breaking mikes, tearing papers and throwing them on the Chair, jumping on tables and chairs and shouting slogans.
Two MLAs, Madhusudan Gupta (Congress) and K. Ramachandra Reddy (YSRC), even tried to climb onto the Speaker’s table to pull away the mike. TRS legislator T. Harish Rao tried to cordon off the podium and pulled the two members down.
There was also ambiguity about initiating the debate on the Bill. Legislative affairs minister D. Sridhar Babu urged Deputy Speaker M. Bhatti Vikramarka, who was chairing the proceedings, to initiate the debate.
Read here: Crucial BAC meet on Telangana today
He made this request though he himself had said earlier that the BAC would reconvene and fix a schedule for debate once the President referred the Bill to the Assembly.
Amidst the continuing din, the Deputy Speaker called Telugu Desam floor leader N. Chandrababu Naidu, and shortly after adjourned the House for the day.
Agitated members from Seemandhra rushed to Assembly secretary S. Raja Sadaram, who explained that the debate had not started.
Next: CM just can’t stomach it
CM just can’t stomach it
Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, who has been batting for a united Andhra Pradesh, skipped proceedings of the Assembly on the crucial day when the Telangana Bill came before the Assembly, on Monday.
The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said that Mr Reddy is ill with food-poisoning. But TD and YSRC leaders from Seemandhra accused him of ducking the responsibility of keeping the state united.
Significantly, the AP Reorganisation Bill 2013 sent by President Pranab Mukherjee proved wrong the Chief Minister’s claim that the President had got the Bill modified with regard to the procedure of amending the contentious Article 371 D, which provides special status in education and jobs for locals.
The CM had been saying that the new state could not be formed because the amendment procedure suggested by the President required the approval of two-thirds of the members of Parliament and 50 per cent state legislatures.
According to the CM, the Centre had proposed consequential amendment through the Reorgani-sation Bill itself, but the Bill sent by the President did not contain the lengthy procedure.
