Slamming Congress on Telangana issue which rocked Parliament on Monday, the BJP said the Congress hurried through the announcement on forming the new state for electoral gains and maintained the issue could have been handled with “greater harmony”.
“The movement for Telangana has been one of the biggest mass movements in India in recent history. This movement has sustained itself for a long time. Government should have responded to it well in advance,” Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley told reporters.
The Telangana issue led to frequent disruptions in both Houses of Parliament on the first day of the monsoon session.
While the anti-Telangana MPs, including from Congress, protested, there were demands for separate statehood to Bodoland and other regions.
Mr. Jaitley charged the government has created a situation where two regions (Telangana and Seemandhra) are crossing swords with each other.
“Why could you not do it with much greater harmony?” he said, adding the NDA government had formed three states -- Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand -- by first building a consensus on the issue.
The BJP maintained NDA had held discussions with all stakeholders. The three states concerned -- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh -- were asked to pass unanimous resolutions in their assemblies.
After the states were formed, revenues were shared and river waters were divided in no time. Even the High Courts in the new states were created in a week’s notice, Mr. Jaitley said.
“It was part of our honest commitment. We had no political motivation.... Congress has no commitment and announced Telangana for electoral reasons. I suspect this strategy will not work. They will end up as losers in both regions (Telangana and Seemandhra),” Mr. Jaitley said.
