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News International-Politics Telangana: Development or division? | Telangana: Development or division? |
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| Tuesday, 15 December 2009 | |
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The States Reorgnisation Commission appointed in 1953, was not in favour of merging the Telangana region with the then Andhra state. However, the Central government decided to establish unified Andhra Pradesh. In the following years after the formation of Andhra Pradesh state, however, the Telangana people had a number of complaints about the implementation of agreements entered while merger.
Telangana movement, led to widespread violence. The Congress faced dissension within its ranks but its leadership stood against additional linguistic states. As a result, defectors from the Congress, led by M Chenna Reddy, founded the Telangana People's Association. The movement was not strong enough, for a continuing drive for a separate state until 1990s, when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), promised a separate Telangana state if they come into power. BJP created Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarkhand states in year 2000, as promised. But the BJP couldn't create a separate Telangana state because of the opposition from its coalition partner, Telugu Desam Party. These developments brought new life into the separatist Telangana movement by year 2000. Congress Party MLAs from the Telangana region, supported a separate Telangana state and formed the Telangana Congress Legislators Forum. In another development, a new party called Telangana Rashtra Samithi (or TRS) was formed with the single point agenda of creating a separate Telangana state, with Hyderabad as its capital lead by Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao popularily known as KCR. In 2004, for assembly and parliament elections, the Congress party and the TRS had an electoral alliance in the Telangana region with the promise of a separate Telangana state. Congress came into power in the state and formed a coalition government at the Centre. TRS joined the coalition government in 2004, and was successful in making a separate Telangana state a part of the common minimum programme (CMP) of the coalition government. Same was pursued continuously. In February 2009, state government declared that it had no objection to the formation of separate Telangana and to move forward decisively on this issue, government constituted joint house committee. On December 9, 2009, P Chidambaram, Union Minister of Home Affairs, on behalf of the Government of India announced that a resolution in the Andhra Pradesh assembly for the creation of a separate Telangana state will be passed. KCR ending his 11 day fast said from his hospital bed that this is a true victory of the people of Telangana. On December 10, 2009, Indian government has agreed to start the process of forming a separate Telangana state. The state government was asked by the Central government to pass a resolution in the legislative assembly (as per article 3 of Constitution, parliament doesn't require assembly resolution to create a new state. About 134 MLA's resigned from the Legislative Assembly in protest and three persons committed suicide in protest of formation of separate Telangana. Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mayawati wrote letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding that steps be taken for carving out separate states of Bundelkhand and Western Uttar Pradesh out of the country's most populated state. In New Delhi, leaders of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha met Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and demanded the creation of a separate Gorkhaland state saying, "We want to be liberated from the colonial rule of West Bengal government." The decision of dividing Andhra Pradesh will lead to more demands for separate statehood. As such, the decision appears to be incorrect. What we should not forget is the main focus which should be development of the area and not the division. For the development of an area separation is not required, what is required is more attention. Government can instead of dividing boundaries can divide separate funds for the development of such areas. |
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