Samaikyandhra activists upbeat

They hail BJP national president Rajnath Singh’s statement on bifurcation

Activists of the Samaikyandhra movement heaved a sigh of with relief after BJP national president Rajnath Singh’s statement that his party will carve out the new State only after addressing the grievances of the Seemandhra people “once it came to power”.

Samaikyandhra activists, who were highly demoralised by the way the UPA government was going ahead with the Telangana Bill without any consideration to the issues like the sharing of water, power and addressing the problems of a common capital, were relieved when the BJP leader on Friday said that the party would not support the Bill without resolving the grievances of the Seemandhra people.

‘Confusing statement’

This will mean that the bifurcation will be put off till the elections, the activists say. The die-hard integrationists, however, say that the BJP, like the Congress, was only trying to confuse the people of the State.

Krishna district Samaikyandhra political JAC convenor Kolanukonda Sivaji said that there was no difference between the Congress and BJP. Even as he was opposing the Telangana Bill, Mr. Rajnath Singh, was saying that the party was committed to the formation of Telangana. This was a statement to confuse the people of Seemandhra and gain political mileage, Mr. Sivaji added.

He said that the Draft Bill for the Re-organisation of Andhra Pradesh should be sent back to the President as it was not possible to take the views of all the legislatures of the State. As many as 15 Assembly seats in eight districts of Seemandhra region were vacant.

The view of the Legislative Assembly would not be complete without the feelings of people from those regions.

On the other hand not a single seat was vacant in the ten Telangana districts. Therefore the Draft Bill should not be tabled until all seats were filled up, he said. Similarly there were ten vacancies in the Legislative Council. They could be filled only after elections to the civic bodies, he said.

Meanwhile, former MLA Adusumilli Jayaprakash in a statement alleged that a huge amount of money had been brought from New Delhi to buy Seemandhra region MLAs and get their approval for the Telangana Draft Bill. Mr. Jayaprakash said that never in the history of the country was a Draft Bill flown in a military aeroplane.

The real purpose of the special flight was something else, he alleged. AICC president Sonia Gandhi had taken it up as a prestige issue, he added.