The newly appointed AICC state affairs incharge Digvijaya Singh was flooded with arguments for and against bifurcation of state by Telangana and Seemandhra leaders of his party respectively on Monday here, during his maiden visit to the state after taking up the reins of state party affairs.
Soon after Digvijaya had dropped hints that the Congress high command might bifurcate the state, during the PCC executive meeting held at Gandhi Bhavan here, a huge contingent of Seemandhra Congress leaders called on the AICC point man at Lake View guest house here.
As many as 12 state ministers, Union minister Kotla Jaya Surya Prakash Reddy, seven MPs including KVP Ramachandra Rao, 42 MLAs and 20 MLCs met Digvijaya and submitted a memorandum requesting him to persuade the Congress not to bifurcate the state.
The Seemandhra leaders told the AICC point man that in the event of state bifurcation there would be intense ‘water wars’ between the two states as ayacut of the existing dams such as Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam span across the two regions.
“Granting statehood to Telangana would lead to water wars resulting in grave injustice to the people of Andhra and Rayalaseema,” the leaders told Singh.
Apart from sharing of river waters, status of Hyderabad is also a contentious issue, they told him.
They also warned of law and order problems and resurgence of Maoist movement.After meeting him, ministers Sailajanath and TG Venkatesh disclosed to reporters that they had told Singh in no uncertain terms that they would accept nothing short of keeping Andhra Pradesh as it is.
T-Congress leaders led by deputy chief minister C Damodara Rajanarasimha and panchayat raj minister K Jana Reddy met Digvijaya Singh on Monday evening and requested him to prevail upon the party high command to accord statehood to their region at the earliest.
Taking exception to inviting only the chief minister and PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana, who hail from Seemandhra, to the proposed crucial meeting of the Congress core committee, which will decide the fate of Andhra Pradesh, the T-Congress leaders requested Singh to allow Rajanarasimha to participate in the meeting to present the viewpoint of Telangana leaders.