KCR opens a can of worms

• Issue heading for a legal battle, AP government decides to move Supreme Court
• AP says KCR is violating the spirit of Constitution
• AP HRD minister: Don’t resort to hate politics of discrimination
• Cut-off date of 1956 for nativity not acceptable
• Anyone who stayed in T for 15 years should be treated as local
• On EAMCET counselling also the T govt is acting in an irresponsible way, he criticises

Hyderabad: The new scheme of FAST -- Financial Assistance to Students from Telangana -- which according to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is aimed at cleansing the fee reimbursement scheme and ensuring that only deserving students are benefited, seems to be heading for a legal tangle.

Peeved over the rejection of the demand of the Andhra government that the fees of Andhra students who are settled and studying in Telangana should also be reimbursed, the AP government is contemplating to knock on the doors of the Supreme Court. Taking umbrage over the T cabinet fixing 1956 as the cut off date for fixing nativity of the students, the AP government as well as the TDP party alleged that KCR was violating the spirit of the Constitution. The AP Minister for Human Resource Development Ganta Srinivasa Rao said that while the T Government was free to announce any scheme it liked to help the students, it should not resort to hate politics or discrimination of all those who had settled in Telangana for over three decades. The decision to introduce FAST would affect lakhs of such students, the minister said. The issue of Local and Non-local would create a ‘constitutional crisis.’ Being a new government, KCR should not do anything that would lead to such a crisis. He said the AP government would also take up the issue with the Centre.

Rao said bifurcation did not mean a separate Constitution similar to ‘Vatican City’. He pointed out that there was already a Presidential Order, 6-point formula, Article 371(D), 1974 Order of AP Regulation on Admissions for guiding the issue of nativity.

Being a new government, KCR should not do anything that would lead to such a crisis. He said the AP government would also take up the issue with the Centre.

Rao said bifurcation did not mean a separate Constitution similar to ‘Vatican City’. He pointed out that there was already a Presidential Order, 6-point formula, Article 371(D), 1974 Order of AP Regulation on Admissions for guiding the issue of nativity.

As per the Presidential Order of 1973 any student who had studied here for four years prior to passing 10th class should be considered as native of Telangana. Even if one goes by Mulki rules anyone who had been staying in Telangana for 15 years should be treated as locals, he said. He described the 1956 cut off date as entirely ‘unconstitutional’ and the government of Andhra Pradesh would ask the Advocate General for taking up the issue in the Supreme Court, he said.

He recalled KCR’s words, where he promised better treatment of the ‘settlers’ during the election campaigning and asked him to stop behaving like an activist. If the issue of fee reimbursement was not sorted out now, this could lead to several new problems in the near future. Reacting to the “confrontationist” attitude of KCR, TDP spokesperson S Chandramohan Reddy said before the bifurcation, TRS claimed that Telangana consisted of 4 crore people. This included all those who had come from other parts of the country including Seemandhra. At that time the TRS found it convenient to claim them as part of T region but now he wanted to push them out. Reddy said what would have happened to L K Advani, Manmohan Singh and other leaders who were born in Pakistan, if the Indian government after bifurcation had decided that 1897 should be the cut off year to decide who was Indian and who was not. KCR should stop taking narrow political view of sensitive issues, he added.

On EAMCET counselling, the minister said that the Telangana government was acting in an irresponsible way in the conduct of counselling. He said that the Supreme Court had sought the reaction of the Government while dealing with a petition filed by Telangana Government and would raise the government’s objections in the Supreme Court’, he said.