Division unscientific, says Buddha Prasad

Vijayawada: Former minister, senior Congress leader and chairman of the Official Language Commission, Mandali Buddha Prasad, here on Friday, said that the decision to divide the State was most unscientific and was not acceptable to the majority people. Speaking at Meet the Press programme at the local Press Club, Buddha Prasad said that Telugu-speaking people across the world were opposing the decision and were in favour of keeping the State united.

He said that over 8 crore Telugu-speaking people living in different parts of the world, including those in other States in the country, were expressing their anguish over the move to divide the country’s first linguistic State. He said that the decision would go against the 3,000-year-old unity of the Telugu people.

He said that the Central government had brought the leaders of Andhra and Telangana across the table before merging the two regions in 1956 which was attended among others by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Such an attempt was not made this time while undoing the historical 1956 decision, he regretted.

Claiming that majority people were against division of the State, he recalled how the Jai Telangana movement in 1969 and Jai Andhra movement in 1972 were defused successfully and affirmed that this time too the separatist movement would get silenced. He thanked the people of Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra for voluntarily coming on to the streets opposing the move to divide the State and expressed confidence that the Congress Working Committee would change its decision too.

Buddha Prasad said that his family stood for the unity of the Telugu people right from the beginning and recalled how the Jai Andhra activists threatened his father late Mandali Venkata Krishna Rao during 1972 agitation. He said his father was not allowed to visit Krishna district those days for his stand against division of the State.

He took strong exception to the way the recommendations of Sri Krishna Committee were ignored by the Congress leadership. He said people of the State have allowed the successive Chief Ministers to invest in Hyderabad for the past 57 years as it belonged to them. He said people from Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra have not expressed their protest even as all Central government establishments, research centres and universities were established around the capital.

He pointed out that people wanted their capital to grow and get international recognition like Mumbai and Kolkata. “Having grown to that level, the city cannot be denied to the people,” Buddha Prasad maintained.

The former minister said that he too had opposed every attempt to divide the State and encourage the separatist forces. He recalled how late Dr YS Rajasekhar Reddy, as Congress Legislature Party leader in 1999 had allowed Telangana legislators to give a representation to Sonia Gandhi for Telangana State and said that he had expressed his resentment directly to Dr Rajasekhar Reddy. He affirmed that he would continue to work for integrated State and build unity among Telugu-speaking people. He wanted every Telugu person to fight for unity of the State.