CM Kiran Reddy: I'm in unfortunate state

Can’t decide whether to choose samaikyandhra or Congress party

• Kiran begins his marathon speech in Assembly
• To speak on revenues, power, irrigation today
• Dwells on how bifurcation would hit T as well
• Assembly consent must as per conventions

Hyderabad: Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Wednesday started his marathon speech on the Draft AP Re-organisation Bill 2013 and strongly opposed the Bill.

Making a sensational statement, he said people think, “it is fortunate to be the Chief Minister of a state. “But I feel that I am in an unfortunate situation. History cannot be twisted and I oppose the draft Telangana Bill.” He said he was now in a very piquant situation and was not able to decide whether he should choose Samaikyandhra or Congress party. Kiran said there was no doubt that he had become the Chief Minister because of Sonia Gandhi, but still he was opposing the decision of the party high command to divide the State. Kiran appealed to the members to give a patient hearing since he wanted to establish how the bifurcation would affect the interests of the T region as well.

Kiran said bifurcation would adversely affect farmers, employees, students. The Visalandhra was formed only to ensure that all these sections would develop. Amidst interruptions from opposition benches, Kiran said that he need not take moral lessons from BJP and said he was not a person who would change his stand as Nagam Janardhan Reddy did.

Kiran said contrary to the claims being made by some members, the merger of Telangana with Andhra was done only after a resolution was passed by the State Assembly and Burgula Ramakrishna Rao had said that he was in favour of Visalandhra and those who support him should join him. Reeling out the details of history, he said demand for linguistic State of Andhra Pradesh had its genesis in 1908 at Allahabad plenary of the Congress. He also quoted several T MPs representing Nizamabad and Karimnagar who demanded Visalandhra and wanted the capital to be located at Hyderabad. They felt that unless the eight districts of Telangana were merged, it cannot be complete Andhra state. It was felt that development would be possible only when the State was united. The fact that language and culture being same had come as an additional advantage, he said. Kiran asked the members to explain the areas where Telangana had become backward after the merger. He said, post-merger several central organizations and institutions had come to Hyderabad. The trend of attracting industries continues despite agitations because of the facilities that are available here, he said.

He said that in the past all States were divided only after the respective State Assemblies had passed a resolution and after arriving at a consensus. Even the then Home Minister PChidambaram had stated that the Assembly would be asked to move a resolution. More recently, after the CWC decision, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh also said that the Assembly would be asked to pass a resolution but that did not happen.

Quoting former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he said she had stated in Parliament that backwardness cannot be the criteria for division of the State. Referring to the Jaibharat Reddy report which was quoted by TRS members, Kiran said it was constituted to find out the number of employees from outside the region. It was found out that over 58,000 were from Telangana and over 30,000 from Telangana were in Andhra region. The committee had found out that only 18,856 non-Telanganites were appointed here.

After taking into consideration, the exemptions under Presidential order only 14,784 were to be repatriated. Of this 11,747 were repatriated from two departments. The figures from Home department and Education department were still not available. 4,062 employees had got exemption under Presidential order and hence only 32 needed to be repatriated and their cases were pending in Supreme Court.