Telangana crossed a major hurdle on the route to becoming India’s 29th state with Parliament approving the bill to divide Andhra Pradesh in the face of repeated adjournments and continuous disruptions and sloganeering.
It was 8.05 pm on Thursday when Rajya Sabha deputy chair P J Kurien finally declared “the bill is passed”, setting off raucous celebrations among Telangana supporters in the House and in central hall where Lok Sabha MPs from the region crowded around televison sets.
There were unprecedented scenes with bitter opposition from Seemandhra MPs, supported by some regional parties, leading to a cordon of Congress MPs shielding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday against aggressive Telangana opponents.
The announcement of Telangana in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday was greeted with loud cheers in Hyderabad as Parliament’s seal of approval makes the Telangana story practically irreversible as presidential assent and notification by gazette expected to be matters of procedure with few variables. Political jockeying over Telangana has seen the pendulum swing wildly with the Congress’s indecision putting the statehood proposal on the back burner for much of the 15th Lok Sabha, until the wheel turned afresh in last few months.
However,PM Manmohan Singh intervened to assure Seemandhra MPs about the Centre’s commitment to compensate for revenue losses due to the loss of Telangana territories.
Though they kept up their protests, Seemandhra MPs from Congress and TDP seemed increasingly reconciled to the inevitability of Telangana as they limited protests to sloganeering and holding up banners rather than physical obstruction.The TMC contingent,however, set a new precedent by placing itself strategically before every speaker in the discussion to raise slogans against Congress and BJP.
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