UPA ally National Conference on Monday queered the pitch for the Centre by expressing its opposition to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh even as the Government looks determined to introduce the Telangana Bill in Rajya Sabha in the next couple of days.
Union Minister and Congress MP MM Pallam Raju, too, voiced his concerns against the creation of Telangana. For its part, Trinamool Congress, too, said it would oppose the Telangana Bill in the Rajya Sabha. NC leader Farooq Abdullah, who is also in UPA Cabinet, said the State should not be divided when its people do not want it. “I think it (the issue of Telangana) has gone out of gear, terribly out of gear. You have seen 70 per cent, 80 per cent of people do no want division, yet a division is taking place....The people of the State do not want division. We should not divide,” Abdullah said after the Parliament was adjourned.
When told that the Cabinet, of which he is a member, had approved the division of the State, the Minister of New and Renewable Energy said he did not attend that meeting as he was away in Jammu for an event. He said the demand for the separate State has been there since the time Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister, but it was “handled and kept under cover”. The Government has cleared the bill for the creation of Telangana.
Raju criticized the manner in which the Andhra Pradesh re-organization Bill has been taken forward which does not do justice to any region. “There is a lot of anguish in Andhra Pradesh in the manner in which this AP Re-organisation Bill has been brought to the Cabinet first, and the manner in which it has been proceeded. A lot of issues related to water-sharing, security of people, and farmer’s concerns have not been addressed adequately,” Raju said outside the Parliament.
“We are for united India and our party will oppose the Telangana Bill in Parliament,” Trinamool Congress spokesperson Derek O’Brien said in Kolkata. TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu is expected to meet West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to discuss among others the Telangana Bill. Earlier last year, YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy met Banerjee to seek her support for a united Andhra Pradesh.