Rayala - Telangana ?

The final draft of the Telangana bill is expected to spring some surprises as the Group of Ministers (GoM) is expected to review the proposal of including two more districts of Anantapur and Kurnool from Rayalaseema that are contiguous and thus redrawing the boundary of Telangana.
The redefining of boundary, if undertaken, would give the state of Telangana, that may be called Rayala-Telangana, 12 districts instead of 10 and also increase its strength in the Lok Sabha to 21 MPs from the earlier envisaged 17, thus matching it with the Rest of Andhra or Seemandhra containing rest of the two districts of Rayalaseema — Kadapa and Chittoor. The strength of legislative assemblies of both the new states will also become equal having 147 MLAs each.
It is also all set to recommend special status for both the states under Article 371 D having its final round of deliberations on Tuesday to fine-tune their report on Telangana and sync it with the draft state re-organisation bill, the GoM may stamp the ingenious proposal that is said to have come from the Congress high command.
The Congress high command’s move is aimed at hitting many birds with one stone. The proposal to split Rayalaseema, taking two of the four districts, Chittoor and Kadapa are other two, will weaken the Seemandhra backlash against the new Telangana state. It will split the Reddy community, politically dominant in Rayalaseema, that has taken the lead in opposing the division of the state.
Moreover, it would thwart chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy’s declared plan to defeat the resolution for the division of the state, in the assembly, as 28 MLAs from Anantapur and Kurnool are likely to support the resolution with their districts joining the new state, as it would protect their water interests.
The move would also weaken both the YSR Congress led by Jaganmohan Reddy, reduce the political clout of TRS, hamstring the TDP and frustrate the opponents of Telangana within the Congress.
But the move has also been made with other objectives: The Congress leadership is cutting its projected losses in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

The active consideration of the Rayala-Telangana proposal by the Congress has raised the hackles of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and YSR Congress. TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao has called for a Telangana bandh on December 5 in protest against the move to add the two Rayalaseema districts of Anantapur and Kurnool to Telangana, while YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy condemned
the proposal and dubbed it a conspiracy to isolate his party in the Seemandhra region and the rest of Andhra Pradesh.