Taking the battle against the bifurcation of the State further, Union Ministers from Seemandhra vowed to oppose the AP Reorganisation Bill till the Centre accepted their demands.
A day after as many as 16 Seemandhra MPs belonging to the Congress, TDP and the YSR Congress were suspended for five working days from the Parliament for unruly behaviour during the introduction of the bifurcation bill, Union Minister for Textiles Kavuri Sambasiva Rao said that they would continue to protest and raise issues concerning the region.
“I will be in the Parliament and stall the Bill,” the senior Congress MP told reporters after a meeting of the expelled Seemandhra Congress MPs on Friday morning at his residence in Delhi. He expressed confidence that all his colleagues from the region would join his protest in the Lok Sabha. Mr. Rao reiterated the demands of the Seemandhra people.
The first and the foremost demand was to make Hyderabad a Union Territory for a decade till its own capital was developed in residuary Andhra Pradesh, he said. Other issues sought to be redressed include merging Kurnool and Anantapur districts in Telangana and merger of Bhadrachalam division in Seemandhra.
He said the Prime Minister should address the issues before the Parliament resumes its sitting on Monday. On the pepper spraying incident by Vijayawada MP Lagadapati Rajagopal, the Union Minister said he would never support such incidents. He also faulted the Congress for deploying its own MPs to protect the Speaker and the Union Home Minister.
Congress MP from Anakapalli, Sabbam Hari, alleged that the action of Speaker Meira Kumar raised doubts as to whether she had become a pawn in the hands of the ruling party. He claimed that the video footage of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha would be released on Saturday to bring out the facts and sequence of events that led to pandemonium in the two houses on Thursday.
He said the Congress had used muscle power and resorted to high handed behaviour by deploying as many as 50 party MPs to enable the introduction of the Bill. When three MPs were assaulting Mr. Rajagopal, he was forced to use pepper spray, Mr. Rao said.
