Chief Ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh K Chandrashekar Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu held a first formal meeting on Sunday to sort out the thorny issues bedeviling the relations of the two neighbours since they were separated in June last.
The meeting, which continued for one and a half hour took place at the initiative of Governor ESl Narasimhan at Raj Bhavan. He had mooted the idea of the meeting to sort out differences when the two Chief Ministers came together to attend ‘At Home’ on the occasion of the Independence Day.
The meeting, in which the Chief Secretaries and the Speakers and other senior officials were also present, was marked by cordiality and a spirit of accommodating each other’s point of view.
In a reflection of this newly found spirit, Telangana agreed that the Budget Session of its State Assembly will be held only after the conclusion of the Budget Session of AP Assembly. “We requested that the AP Assembly Session should be concluded by September 7 to which they agreed,” he said.
Ever since they took over as the Chief Ministers of the neighboring States, Naidu and KCR met only twice that too accidentally. The first meeting was earlier this month when they came to airport to receive visiting President Pranab Mukherjee in Hyderabad and the second run in was at the Raj Bhavan on the Independence Day.
The relationship of the two friends-turned-political foes was marked by bitterness. KCR was earlier in the TDP and worked as a Minister in the Naidu Government. In 2001, he resigned from the Telugu Desam Party as well as the post of the deputy Speaker to launch Telangana Rashtra Samiti and revived the movement for separate Telangana State.
The two Chief Ministers expressed the desire that both the Telugu States should develop and progress. “For this purpose both of us are ready to visit New Delhi together,” KCR said. “The talks were held in cordial atmosphere and were fruitful,” he said.
While 12 issues figured in the talks, the main focus was the division of the employees by the two States. “We have agreed to solve all the problems amicably,” declared the Telangana Chief Minister at a subsequent Press conference.The other issues ranged from the sharing of river waters, supply of power and utilisation of a port by landlocked Telangana.
“Even the State Reorganisation Act says that in case of differences the two States can solve them through discussions,” KCR said.On the issue of division of employees, KCR said that it was not such a big problem because Kamalanathan committee was in the process of dividing them. “Of them, 22,000 posts are vacant and only 45,000 employees were to be divided,” he said.Apart from the two Chief Ministers holding the talks, the Governor also held separate meeting with each of them.KCR said that as Telangana was a landlocked State, it should be allowed to utilise the port at Machlipatanam in Andhra Pradesh.
On the institutions mentioned in 9th and 10th Schedules of the Reorganisation Act, the two States agreed to come to an understanding. “There is a need for both the States to utilise the human resources development institutions,” KCR said.Pointing out that he had offered Naidu to sort out the issues through talks in the past, KCR said that higher officials would be in touch and hold meetings to solve the problems. “The issues which can not be resolved by the officials will come to the Chief Ministers”.The two Chief Ministers agreed that the Chief Secretaries of the two States will maintain regular contacts.