Debate on the State reorganisation Bill in the Andhra Pradesh legislative Assembly, which was likely to end on Wednesday, continues to generate a lot of heat and dust.
While the subject of discussion was the idea of Telangana State, unwittingly the personality and the rule of Asif Jahi rulers specially the last Nizam became the focal point with members of various political hues either targeting them or praising them. After some members from Seemandhra regions attacked the Nizam saying he had divided the Telugu people by ceding some part of the State to the British and other colonial powers, Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) and TRS members came out in full force to defend the Nizam as a good ruler who was the real architect of Hyderabad as a modern and developed city.
Seemandhra members including the Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu claimed that Hyderabad city had developed more in his (Naidu’s) nine-year-old rule than during the Asif Jahi era.
Another Telugu Desam member P Keshav also attacked Nizam's era saying only Urdu and Persian languages were used by the Nizam Government and Telugu was neglected leading to the formation of Andrha Maha Sabha. State legislative Affairs Minister S Shailajanath described Nizam as an autocratic ruler and said supporting him will be treachery with the country.
Angrily reacting to these attacks, the MIM members rushed to the podium of the Speaker demanding that the provocative references should be expunged from the record. Members of Telangana Rashtra Samiti also strongly protested and said that if Hyderabad city was developed it was because of Nizam and not because of Andhra ruler. "Nizam had set up factories, colleges, Osmania University, Hospital, High Court and even the building in which the MlAs were sitting", he said.
MIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi tore in to the arguments of Seemandhra members and specially the claims of Chandrababu Naidu.