Telangana derails Parliament again; Rajya Sabha polls today

The Telangana issue continued to disrupt Parliament proceedings for the second day on Thursday, as no business could be transacted in either House. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was apparently waiting for the Rajya Sabha elections to get over on Friday before taking a call on the Telangana Bill, which seeks to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.

At stake for the Congress are three out of the six vacant seats from Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is contesting two seats and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), one seat.

While the Lok Sabha on Wednesday took up the issue of mistreatment of people from the north east in the wake of the death of a student from Arunachal Pradesh, a similar attempt in the Upper House on Thursday was scuttled with protests over Telangana and Tamil Nadu fishermen, which made any other discussion impossible. An exasperated chairman Hamid Ansari said: “Can we not respect even the dead?”

A Group of Ministers (GoM) on Telangana headed by home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Thursday reportedly discussed the additional demands by the Union ministers from Seemandhra. These include making Hyderabad a Union Territory for a limited period and incorporating Bhadrachalam sub-division with residuary Andhra Pradesh.

Speculation was rife that given the current impasse in the House, the government would not succeed in clearing the contentious Bill.

However, Shinde told reporters: “Before this session of Parliament is over, we will bring the Telangana Bill to the House.”
 
TDP members, who have been consistently sloganeering in the well of the House later told Business Standard that they would not allow the House to function “even for a day”, except for passing financial bills.

While the House was being held to ransom over Telangana, other political parties also joined the fray sloganeering over the AgustaWestland deal (by the Bharatiya Janata Party) anti- Sikh riots ( (Akali Dal), Tamil fishermen (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), Beni Prasad Verma’s controversial comments about Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party). It appeared that none of the Opposition parties was in a mood to let the government take credit for passing a slew of anti-corruption Bills it has lined up.

Meanwhile, YSR Congress president Jaganmohan Reddy called on the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leadership on Thursday, following which CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said the party doesn’t want bifurcation of the state.

Karat also attacked both the Congress and the BJP. “Given the way Congress and BJP are mistreating Parliament and doctoring its proceedings, it is clear that the session is being manipulated for their political ends.” He alleged the UPA had made the session as a launching pad for their election campaign. “They are bringing major Bills on communal violence and six others to curb corruption to show to the electorate that the Opposition did not allow them to be passed. But the facts on the ground are totally different.”