As the agitation against the division of Andhra Pradesh continues to rage across Seema-Andhra region, the severe power crisis in the State now threatens to engulf entire South India.
A total power outage in 13 districts of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema has paralyzed even emergency services including hospitals and drinking water supply. With two major thermal power stations in Vijayawada and Kadapa and several hydel power stations shutting down, the State is getting less than two thirds of its required electricity. Officials of Andhra Pradesh Power Transmission Corporation said only 7,000 MW power was available to the State.
However, the public protest against the Centre was effectively exploited by Opposition parties. While YSR Congress president Jaganmohan Reddy’s indefinite fast at his residence in Hyderabad entered its fourth day on Tuesday, Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu was on a fast in New Delhi for the second day.
“I will not hesitate to lay down my life for the Telugu people”, Naidu said. Naidu succeeded in attracting the national media’s attention towards the agitation by going to New Delhi. However, Naidu’s move of choosing AP Bhavan as the venue for his fast has put officials in a quandary who maintain that no permission was granted to Naidu to sit on fast there.
Meanwhile, barely two days after constituting a ten-member GoM on Telangana, the Government on Tuesday reorganised the high-powered ministerial panel by dropping HRD Minister Pallam Raju, bringing in Defence Minister AK Antony, and also reducing the number of members to seven. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Antony, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas M Veerappa Moily and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh are the members of the reconstituted GoM.
“There cannot be a rethink on the issue. A decision has already been taken by the Cabinet,” Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth said. Meanwhile, Hyderabad that had been feeling the shock of the outages, got a reprieve when power was restored on Tuesday night. Many areas of Hyderabad witnessed outages of more than five hours during the day, affecting work in offices and business establishments.
The situation was so bad that airports in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam were on the verge of closure as the backup power system were also packing up. Hundreds of thousands of mobile phones and ATMs stopped working due to the power crisis.
Officials have warned that if the situation does not improve, the southern grid can collapse, plunging other South Indian States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Pondicherry into darkness. Telangana Electricity Employees Joint Action Committee has alleged that anti-social elements were involving in tripping the sub-stations in Seema-Andhra region and that the Government was not taking any action to protect them.
Harish Rao, senior leader of Telangana Rashtra Samithi contacted Governor ESl Narasimhan to seek his intervention and deployment of para military forces to protect power installations. As all efforts of the State Government to end the strike by power sector employees failed, Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy plans to hold talks with AP Non-Gazetted Officers Association on Wednesday.The talks between the Power Sector Employees Joint Action Committee and the Cabinet sub-committee ended without any results.
APNGOs Association president Ashok Babu warned that if the Centre did not go back on its decision to divide the State, there was no question of their calling off the strike.
Meanwhile in a setback to opponents of the bifurcation, Andhra Pradesh High Court has rejected a public interest litigation questioning the Union Cabinet’s decision to bifurcate the State. In its order, the division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyothi Sengupta and KC Bhanu said no public interest was involved in this issue.
In the PIl, a city-based lawyer PV Krishnaiah had sought the High Court’s direction to the Centre not to take any action under Article 3 of the Constitution to create Telangana as the issue of Andhra Pradesh was settled permanently under Article 371 (d) of the Constitution.
In another development, curfew in Vijayanagaram continued for the fourth day, even though police relaxed curfew for one hour in the morning. The authorities had imposed curfew on Saturday evening after mobs had indulged in large-scale violence, targeting the houses and properties of State Congress president Botsa Satyanarayana, police personnel and their vehicles.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Reddy has come out openly against the Centre on the issue of bifurcation. Angered by this, several Telangana Congress leaders have demanded the Centre’s intervention.Congress’ Rajya Sabha member from Telangana Palvai Govardhan Reddy had gone to the extent of demanding the Chief Minister’s arrest.
“How can the Centre sit with its eyes shut when there is no law and order in the State,” he wondered. Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde scotched the speculation that President’s Rule will be imposed in the State. However, there are indications that Congress central leadership has taken serious note of Reddy’s behavior and is thinking of taking some surgical steps.