Even as the Congress Working Committee is gearing up to finalise the party’s stand on the six-decade-old demand for a separate Telagnana state, it will have to take into account the deep differences in the party in Andhra Pradesh over the issue.
After Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy made everybody known that he favoured an integrated Andhra Pradesh before the Congress Core Committee meeting last week, it turns out State Congress president Botsa Satyanarayana had countered the CM’s contentions even as the Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha strongly pitched in for Telangana. Satyanarayana refuted the CM’s idea that formation of a smaller State will lead to an upsurge in the activities of Maoists and that law and order situation will worsen. He said that a larger State cannot automatically check Maoists activities.
“It depends on the way administration is run. If a large State could check the Maoists activities, then how were the Maoists able to attack the convoy of N Chandrababu Naidu when he was the Chief Minister,” he is said to have maintained. The CM had asserted that if Telangana becomes a separate State, Maoists will become active once again posing a grave threat to the entire country.
Botsa said that while he was personally in favor of a united Andhra Pradesh, he was ready to abide by any decision of the Congress high command. At the same time, he said he strongly advocated that in case of division of the state, Hyderabad city should be the joint capital for next 25 years. Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha in his presentation before the core committee said that nothing less than separate
Telangana State with Hyderabad as its capital will be acceptable to the people of the region. “This is a fight for existence and self respect,” he told the core committee last week. He said that injustice meted out over the last 58 years to the people of Telangana was the cause for demanding Statehood. “Nothing else will be acceptable”. He also rejected the proposal of the Chief Minister that Telangana should be given a package instead of Statehood.