YSRC seeks status quo on bifurcation

Urges Centre not to go ahead with the division until people of both regions are satisfied

YSRC honorary president Y.S. Vijayamma presenting a memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee. Photo: By Arrangement

A delegation of YSR Congress leaders led by its honorary president, Y.S. Vijayamma, called on President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on Tuesday and urged the Centre not to go ahead with the division of the State until the people of both the regions were satisfied that no injustice would be done to them.

In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Ms. Vijayamma described the situation in Andhra Pradesh as volatile and said the State was completely paralysed because of the ongoing agitation against the “arbitrary and irrational decision taken by the CWC”.

Unique problems

Observing that there were unique problems as far as AP was concerned, the memorandum said that Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Area has emerged not only as the political capital of AP but also as a super economic power house accounting for 70 per cent of the manufacturing GDP of the State and 95 per cent of the software activity, besides housing almost all the institutions of higher learning.

Seeking to know the fate of investments of people from Andhra region, irrigation projects and water sharing if the State was divided, Ms. Vijayamma said that bifurcation would create huge problems for people of Andhra region, particularly in the context of the entire manufacturing industry and software business remaining in HMDA.

The memorandum said, “We are shocked that the Congress party, which has not expressed any opinion at all on the three all-party meetings held on the subject of statehood for Telangana has, all of a sudden, announced that it is in favour of the division of the State without any public debate and discussion on critical issues like water sharing, revenue sharing and the future of Hyderabad city, in which people of both the regions viz. Andhra and Telangana have been living peacefully for the last 57 years.”

Ms. Vijayamma said there was absolutely no governance in the State for the last four years and demanded that status quo be maintained in case justice could not be rendered to both regions. The delegation submitted a similar memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee and criticised the UPA government for the ‘opportunistic’ manner in which it was handling the Telangana issue.