NEW DELHI, 24 August 2006 — The demand for a separate Telangana state found its echo in the Lok Sabha (lower house)) yesterday with four Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MPs stalling the proceedings even as the house appealed its chief K. Chandrashekhara Rao to end the indefinite hunger strike he began in the morning.
Rao and A. Narendra Tuesday resigned as labor minister and minister of state for rural development respectively, accusing the Congress party, which leads the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of ignoring the demand.
The TRS, which has only five seats in the house withdrew support from the UPA government. However, the decision poses no threat to Manmohan Singh’s two-year-old government, which still commands the support of nearly 330 lawmakers in the 545-seat Lok Sabha.
After pulling out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition at the center, Rao launched an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi while his party MPs stalled the proceedings in the Lok Sabha. The regional party did not allow any business to be conducted in the state assembly either.
The house was adjourned for half an hour after the four MPs, A. Narendra, Ravindra Naik, Madhusudan Reddy and Vinod Kumar, created a ruckus over the three-decade-old demand to carve a separate state for Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh.
And as soon as the house met, they gathered near Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s podium raising slogans like “Jai Telangana”, “Respect common minimum program” and “Respect people’s verdict”. Despite repeated pleas from the speaker, the MPs refused to go back to their seats. “I want to listen to you now although this is not the time. (But) you want to hold the house to ransom,” Chatterjee told the agitated MPs who were standing in the well of the house wearing their trademark pink shawls around their necks.
Although Ram Kripal Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ramdas Athawale of the Republican Party of India managed to coax the MPs to return to their seats, barely a minute later they went back to the well again raising loud slogans.
Manmohan was present in the house as the MPs continued to disrupt proceedings for almost half an hour. An exasperated Chatterjee asked all party leaders to decide whether the house should run or not and adjourned the house till 12 noon.
When the house met again TRS MPs were absent, but Chatterjee made a plea to Rao to end his fast, assuring him of “full opportunity” to put forward his point of view inside the house.
“I believe the entire house joins me in this request,” Chatterjee said.
Apart from the five MPs in the house, the TRS also have 26 legislators in Andhra Pradesh Assembly that supported a Congress-led government in the state.
After stalling the Lok Sabha in New Delhi and the TRS simultaneously disrupted the Andhra Pradesh Assembly to step up its campaign for statehood to the Telangana region.
Speaker K.R. Suresh Reddy adjourned the house for the day as TRS members did not let him to conduct the listed business and insisted that the house pass a resolution on a separate Telangana.
Talking to reporters here, Rao claimed the central government could have passed the bill to create a separate state as the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has supported the demand for a separate Telangana state.
“Still, Congress did not pay any heed to us. It has betrayed us,” Rao said.
Accusing the ruling party of being “opportunistic”, Rao said Congress chief and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi campaigned during the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh wearing a pink shawl, but her party had ignored its allies after winning the polls.
“It is a matter of fulfilling promises. It doesn’t matter even if I lose my life. We will continue to fight for a separate Telangana,” Rao asserted. They have been demanding that the UPA make a categorical announcement that a bill to create a separate state would be tabled in the winter session of parliament. Rao, who met Sonia Tuesday, is believed to have been reassured that the Congress-led government was committed to the creation of the state, a promise given in the ruling coalition’s agenda for governance, the common minimum program.
The demand for statehood to the backward Telangana region that comprises 10 districts, including Hyderabad, is more than three decades old.
