With grave political instability staring in the face of Andhra Pradesh, demands for imposition of President’s Rule are becoming louder.
Amid growing indications that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy can give a rude shock to the Congress high command by stepping down from his post during next month’s Assembly session, Congress MP P Govardhan Reddy demanded that the State should be placed under direct Central rule as the administration had come to a grinding halt and law and order situation had collapsed.
The demand came a day after the CM’s attempt at patching up with the Ministers from all the regions failed as his dinner was attended only by 26 Ministers. Eleven Ministers, mostly from Telangana, including Deputy CM Damodar Rajanarasimha and senior Minister K Jana Reddy stayed away.
This was first time that so many Ministers from different regions had come together almost one and a half months after the Congress Working Committee decided to go ahead with bifurcation of the State.
What transpired at the get together was not clear but sources said that the Chief Minister mostly spoke about the Finance Commission’s recommendations in the past in view of his meeting with the 14th Finance Commission officials in Hyderabad.
Speculation was rife that the Chief Minister is not in a mood to abide by the dictate of party high command and move a resolution in support of bifurcation of the State in the Assembly session next month.
Sources believe that the Congress leadership was planning an alternative strategy of asking some other senior Minister from Telangana region to move the resolution. Even then the Chief Minister was likely to oppose the resolution during the debate and might announce his resignation at the end of the debate.
Senior Congress leaders from Telangana say that the Assembly will debate the resolution but there will not be any voting as the resolution will be defeated in case of voting as numerically Seemandhra MlAs were in majority and they were oppose to bifurcation.
“But the resolution is not necessary for the Centre to go ahead with the formation of Telangana State”, a senior Telangana leader said.
P Govardhan Reddy said that he has already made a representation to the Centre to dismiss the present Government in the State in view of the prevailing situation in the State and impose Central rule. “Even Punjab and Haryana States were also divided under President’s rule,” he said.
“Both Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana had agreed in New Delhi to bifurcation but now they are opposing it in Andhra Pradesh,” he alleged.
Meanwhile the 72-hour strike by the power utilities’ employees in the State on Thursday entered the second day. Earlier they had planned to go on indefinite fast but after the intervention of the CM they agreed to tone it down to 72-hour strike. They have also exempted the staff involved in supply of power to essential services from the strike.
The power utilities employees of Seemandhra have appealed to the people of the two regions not to pay electricity bills till the Centre withdraws the proposal of the bifurcation.
Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader T Harish Rao on Thursday warned that if power supply in Telangana was disrupted because of the strike, they will not keep quiet. Addressing a meeting on the “rebuilding of Telangana” in Hyderabad, he said that while RTC buses were stopped as part of the strike in Andhra-Seema regions, private buses were being allowed to benefit the capitalists of the regions.