HYDERABAD: Days after the result of the Warangal Lok Sabha byelection in which the ruling TRS trounced its rivals, the TDP and the pink party on Thursday once again crossed swords with each other. But, this time, the battleground was the Lok Sabha in Delhi and the bone of contention was the manner of bifurcation of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.
In what could be considered as an action replay of the verbal duel that had taken place between TRS MPs and TDP’s Andhra MPs prior to the passage of the State Reorganisation Bill in Parliament, the first day sitting of Lok Sabha during the winter session of Parliament witnessed a slanging match between TDP’s K Ramamohan Naidu and TRS’ AP Jitendar Reddy over the way Telangana state was formed.
At a time when the president of his party and AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu began shifting his attention to the ensuing elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), where a sizeable number of Seemandhra voters will decide the fortunes of political parties, Rammohan Naidu chose the Constitution Day as an occasion to express Andhra people’s displeasure over the manner in which the combined state of AP was divided by the then UPA government.
He alleged that the undivided AP was bifurcated in an unjust manner without considering the views of Andhras.
The young TDP MP further alleged that the UPA government had divided AP ignoring the views of majority people with the help of the provisions provided in the Constitution.
Jitendar Reddy countered it, saying that the process of bifurcation was initiated only after the TDP had submitted a letter to the Centre asking it to divide AP. He recalled that Rammohan’s father and former MP K Yerrannaidu himself had given a letter to the Centre to bifurcate the undivided AP at that time.
In Hyderabad, Telangana TDP leaders, unable to digest the humiliating drubbing the TDP-BJP candidate had suffered in the Warangal bypoll, started formulating strategies to ensure that there would be no repeat of the Warangal bypoll fiasco for the TDP in the upcoming GHMC polls.
They began exerting pressure on their party chief Naidu to break his silence on TRS rule and start attacking his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao. The party is planning to hold another brainstorming session here on Saturday to redraw its strategy for GHMC polls. Party chief Naidu is likely to attend it as he would be in Hyderabad on that day to hold a meeting with all higher-ups in various departments at the AP Secretariat here.
