Jagan asks Prez to keep AP united

Hopes entire Opposition will unite to stop Bill

New Delhi: YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Saturday called on President Pranab Mukherjee and urged him to keep Andhra Pradesh State united.

Jagan submitted a four-page memorandum requesting the president not to recommend introduction of the T Bill to Parliament as it was being initiated against all constitutional conventions and precedents.

Later, talking to the media, he said that his party would build consensus among all opposition parties and stall the process of the division of the state in case the union government introduced the Bill in Parliament. He exuded confidence that the entire opposition would unite and oppose the Bill. The bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, he said, was against the Constitution because the Assembly and the Council had rejected the Bill unanimously.

The YSR party leader said it never happened in the past that the Centre taking up a state division Bill without the consent of the respective state. In the case of Andhra Pradesh, the Centre was moving forward against the wishes of the people of the state. “Democracy has been killed in broad day light,” he said. No government had the right to divide a state based on the whims and fancies of some leaders or a political party.

To a query, Jagan said there was no use of moving a no- confidence motion against the UPA government as the elections were round the corner. When the notification for election was slated to be issued in 20 days, there was no logic in moving a no-trust motion. However, if any party moved such a motion, the YSR party would support it, he said in reply to a question.

Referring to Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy’s day-long deeksha against the bifurcation of state in Delhi, he quipped, “Oh, he sat for four hours. Can he, TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu and TRS Chief K Chandrasekhara Rao sit on dharna for at least 36 hours,” he asked.