Though Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde is likely to formally announce the government decision to go ahead with the process of Telangana State creation on Thursday, Seemandhra Congress leaders, now here, have vowed to defeat the relevant Bill in Parliament.
“We are strongly opposing the division of Andhra Pradesh and we will ensure that the Bill for creation of Telangana will never get passed come what may. We are sure that the CPI(M), the SP, the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress and a few [other] like-minded parties will oppose the Bill. It will see the fate of the women’s reservation Bill, which could not be passed in the Lok Sabha though the Rajya Sabha approved it in 2013,” said an agitated Lok Sabha Congress member from coastal Andhra Pradesh.
He said MPs from Seemandhra, including Union Ministers, would meet here on Thursday to chalk out their next course of action.
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He did not rule out the possibility of their quitting Parliament membership en masse to pressure the Congress/the UPA to withdraw the Telangana decision. The MP pointed out that even the BJP was not happy with the proposal to declare Hyderabad joint capital for 10 years.
Another MP from the region is still hopeful of their succeeding this time too and recalled the December 9, 2009 statement in which the government announced that the process of creating Telangana had begun, only to alter it two weeks later, stating that the government would seek consensus on the proposal.
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Meanwhile, leaders from the Telangana region continued to celebrate the new State announcement, with some of them hosting parties. A few of them met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi and thanked them. They insisted that the process of Telangana formation be speeded up and that the State come into being soon.