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Hyderabad: After a
four-month lull, the movement for statehood to the Telangana
region of Andhra Pradesh is set to enter a crucial phase with the
major players, hopeful of achieving their goal, gearing up to
pressurise the central government.
The Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC), which spearheads the
statehood movement, plans to block roads and rail lines and call
for a general strike in the coming days.
"Eventually if nothing works, we will call for a million people to
march to Hyderabad. It is evident that we can achieve our goal
only through agitation and the centre will take a final decision
only on the strength of our agitation," JAC convenor M. Kodandaram
told IANS.
The JAC, which comprises the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other groups, has planned massive
protests for the next couple of months.
This will start with pressurising MPs and state legislators of the
ruling Congress and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP)
to quit.
JAC's deadline for public representatives of the two major parties
to resign ended June 25.
But the death of Telangana ideologue K. Jayashankar last week and
the condolence meetings forced the apex body to delay its protest
programmes.
"They may not have resigned but eventually they will realize that
the time has come for them to take a decision," said Kodanadaram,
who has asked people not to let MPs, ministers and legislators to
visit the villages till they resign for the sake of a separate
state.
Kodandaram said he would not like to call it a "final battle" for
Telangana but a crucial battle. "I am hopeful that we will achieve
our goal this time."
The attacks on two Congress MPs and a state minister last week
during the funeral of Jayashankar in Warngal and the attempts
almost every day to stop convoys of others in the region for their
failure to resign indicate the shape of things in the coming days.
Congress leaders from Telangana are in a dilemma. While a section
of MPs and legislators want to resign, others feel it will not
help in achieving their goal.
"We will not hesitate to resign if it helps in achieving a
separate state," said Ponnam Prabhakar, MP from Karimnagar.
The Congress leaders in Telangana also plan to mount pressure on
their central leadership by undertaking a fast from July 5. The
deadline set by them for the leadership to make a clear-cut
statement ends June 30.
With the leadership giving no hints of an early decision on their
demand for tabling a bill in the coming session of parliament, the
public representatives of the Congress are under intense pressure
from the JAC to take a hard decision.
Even their recent visit to New Delhi and meetings with Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress core committee members and
their threats to resign failed to have any impact.
The TDP is also facing the Telangana heat. It has virtually split
into two camps with the suspension of senior leader N. Janardhan
Reddy for carrying on the movement without the TDP flag and for
criticizing N. Chandrababu Naidu.
Janardhan Reddy, a former minister, and three legislators
supporting him have come closer to the JAC, which is targeting the
group loyal to Naidu.
Janardhan Reddy's proposed two-day fast July 3 and 4 in Hyderabad
is expected to rally pro-Telangana groups on one platform and
become a launch pad for the renewed movement.
To counter the pro-Telangana lobby, Congress leaders from the
Andhra and Rayalaseema regions have decided to visit New Delhi
July 5 to urge the party leadership not to take any step to
bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.
TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao, whose 11-day fast forced New
Delhi to announce Dec 9, 2009, that the process of formation of
Telangana state will be initiated, has warned that if the central
government delays the process further, the movement will take a
violent turn.
More than 300 people were killed in police firings during massive
protests in 1969, across the Telangana region, which comprises 10
districts including Hyderabad.
Rao, who revived the movement by floating TRS a decade ago,
brought the issue back into focus in 2009 following the death of
then chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash.
However, street protests and mass resignations of Congress and TDP
legislators in the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions forced the
centre to backtrack.
The five-member Srikrishna committee, which submitted its report
in December, has suggested six options but strongly favoured
maintaining the status quo.
The Telangana groups rejected the report and now want the centre
to table a bill in parliament to fulfil the promise made in 2009.
(Mohammed Shafeeq can be contacted at m.shafeeq@ians.in)
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