Babu meets Prez; Requests to halt Bifurcation of AP

The TDP chief met the President at Rashtrapati Nilayam here this evening and discussed the bifurcation issue for over 40 minutes.

"The Centre is going ahead with the division process in total violation of the Constitution of India. It is also violating the Supreme Court judgement in the S R Bommai case and unilaterally and arbitrarily using Article 3 of the Constitution.

"This never happened in the creation of any other state in the country," the former Chief Minister told the President.

Briefing newsmen about his interaction with the President, Chandrababu said both sides (Telangana and Seemaandhra) were totally unhappy over the draft AP Re-organisation Bill 2013.

"The draft Bill has been prepared in a haphazard manner. Both sides are totally unhappy over the Bill," he said.

The Group of Ministers, constituted by the Centre to work out the modalities for the bifurcation, did not even care to visit Andhra Pradesh, he said. "Whom did the GoM talk to sitting in New Delhi? We wanted solution to a problem but it created many new problems."

How could the Centre boss over the state's water resources, he asked.

He also found fault with the Centre's move to make Hyderabad a common capital. "Is it not a violation of the Constitution? How could all powers be vested with the Governor?" he said.

The ruling party was only looking at political gains in the entire bifurcation process, he said.

"Congress is in a match-fixing deal with the TRS and the YSRC to destroy the Telugu community and gain political mileage," he alleged.

"I explained all this to the President and sought his intervention as an elder statesman with rich political experience. He responded sympathetically," Chandrababu said.