Telangana Bill will not pass legal scrutiny: Ashok Babu

Group of Ministers has no clarity on 11 items being examined by it, he says

AP NGOs' Association president P. Ashok Babu addressing Save Andhra Pradesh meeting at Vuyyuru in Krishna district on Sunday.

APNGOs’ Association president P. Ashok Babu has said bifurcation has too many hurdles to become a reality and if the Central government still succeeds in taking it forward people should teach Congress and the separatist forces who plunged the State into a crisis, a befitting lesson.

He expressed confidence that the Draft Bill on Telangana will not pass legal scrutiny as the President is likely to refer it to a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. Besides, the BJP has promised to not vote for division unless justice is done to Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.

There are an umpteen number of rules which have to be followed and various options were explored for keeping the State united, Mr. Ashok Babu said and exhorted the people to be alert to possibility of the State being divided after the 2014 elections when a new political dispensation could have the requisite strength to carve out Telangana.

Addressing a ‘Save Andhra Pradesh’ meeting here on Sunday, Mr. Ashok Babu said a few people have studied the Srikrishna Committee report which clearly laid down the ideal course of action. Justice Srikrishna suggested that if bifurcation becomes inevitable, it should be done with consensus lest a civil war should break out and a whole lot of complications should arise.

The danger of people fighting for river waters looms large as most of the irrigation projects are situated on borders of Telangana and Seemandhra. Sharing of waters from these inter-State projects would be mired in legal disputes in addition to the ones in which Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra are involved for many decades.

Mr. Ashok Babu said the Group of Ministers had no clarity on 11 items being examined by it while Sushil Kumar Shinde and Digvijay Singh made contradictory statements on whether the Draft Bill on Telangana should obtain the Presidential assent before being tabled in Parliament and Andhra Pradesh Assembly or the other way around.

The APNGOs Association and others fighting for unified State, were ashamed by the conduct of Union Ministers and MPs from Seemandhra whose subservience to their high command rendered bifurcation an easy job. If they have not surrendered themselves for personal packages, they should immediately resign their posts and join the protests, Mr. Ashok Babu added.

Former Minister Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao, APNGOs’ Association general secretary Chandrasekhara Reddy, Chalasani Srinivas, Bopparaju Venkateswara Rao, Naraharisetti Srihari, Y.V. Rao and others participated.