Violence continued to singe parts of Assam and West Bengal, with Government establishments being torched and railway tracks uprooted over the demand for separate Statehood following the Centre’s decision on Telangana.
The Government is also bracing for trouble from the Trinamool and the Samajwadi Party on this count - the former cautioned it against accepting any more demands for smaller States and the latter made known its intention of opposing Telangana’s creation in Parliament.
To make matters worse, down South, pro and anti-Telangana leaders upped the ante against each other and protests continued in Andhra-Seema regions against the State’s bifurcation. In Hyderabad, tension simmered owing to TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao’s assertion that employees from the rest of the Andhra region in the State Capital will have to go back to their original places.
The ongoing violence in Karbi Anglong district saw Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi to brief them over the prevailing situation. Gogoi ruled out further division of his State saying people there want to live like a joint family.
In West Bengal, as the GJM’s indefinite bandh began in the Darjeeling hills and paralysed normal life, TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee took up the issue at the all-party meeting here demanding a categorical assurance from Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde that no more smaller States will be formed.