State Planning Board vice-chairman B. Vinod Kumar has demanded that the Union government take steps to increase the seats in the Telangana Legislative Assembly as assured in the A.P. State Reorganisation Act 2014.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Central Government had assured to increase the assembly seats in Telangana to 153 from the existing 119 and in Andhra Pradesh, it would be 229 in place of 175. Mr. Vinod Kumar wanted the Centre to take steps to increase the seats in line with the provisions adopted for Jammu and Kashmir.
He was responding to a reply by Union Minister of State for Home Nityananda Rai that increasing Assembly seats would be possible only after the next population Census was out. In a letter addressed to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Mr. Vinod Kumar took exceptions to the Union Minister’s claims that an increase in Assembly seats in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh would require an amendment to the Constitution and it would be possible only after the population Census was released in 2026.
The statement would mean that the exercise on the enhancement of seats in the two Telugu States would be taken up only in 2031. This was another instance of the Centre adopting a discriminatory approach towards the Telugu States, he alleged adding that the BJP government was behaving in contradiction of its own claims on one nation-one law.
He recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central Government had increased the Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir without any amendment to the Constitution and the same yardstick should be adopted in case of Telangana too.