HYDERABAD: The Telangana Assembly on Saturday adopted a resolution seeking ‘special category state’ status for the newly formed state.
Stating that eight of the 10 districts in Telangana were backward districts according to the Planning Commission, 85 percent of the population of Telangana comprised weaker sections including 11 percent of tribals, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said Telangana has all the qualifications to be given the special state status, moving the resolution.
‘’Our state has poor infrastructure and most of the agricultural land is dependent on rains for irrigation. Hence it should be given special category status,’’ he explained and wanted the Centre to treat both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh equally when it comes to incentives and subsidies. The House also adopted another resolution opposing merger of seven mandals under Bhadrachalam revenue division, which would be affected by the Polavaram irrigation project, with Andhra Pradesh. The chief minister moved the resolution and members of the other parties in the House unanimously supported it.
Reading out the resolution against the ordinance on Polavaram, the chief minister said that the ordinance was against the spirit of the Constitution and that several lakhs of tribals, their land, their culture were threatened by the project. He found fault with the Centre for not consulting Telangana before issuing the ordinance. The promulgation of the ordinace has redrew the boundaries of the state which was against the guidelines of Article 3 and wanted the Central government to immediately withdraw the ordinance.
All other parties also supported the resolution stating that grave injustice was meted out to the tribals of Khammam district. When Sathupalle TDP MLA S Venkata Veeraiah said no efforts were made for stopping the ordinance in the Parliament, the chief minister objected to it and explained that the ordinance was passed after the elections. Legislative affairs minister Hairsh Rao elaborated the TRS stand on Polavaram. ‘’Right from the beginning we have opposed the project. In fact, when it was conceptualised during YSR tenure in 2005, we, who were part of his Cabinet resigned and since then hand not lowered our voice against it. Our party had even filed a petition in the Supreme Court against Polavaram project and our leader’s stand is quite clear on the issue,’’ he said.
There were some heated arguments between the TRS and TDP legislators, following which Harish Rao asked the TDP to make its stance clear on the resolution.
The other members who spoke including BJP member Chinatala Ramachandra Reddy, MIM MLA Ahmed Balala, YSRC MLA T Venkateswarlu, CPI MLA R Ravinder Kumar Naik, CPM MLA S Rajaiah, Congress MLAs Uttam Kumar Reddy and Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu supported the resolution. All of them demanded that the proposed seven mandals in Khamma should be retained with Telangana.
