Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh Assembly session has been extended till January 30 to discuss the Telangana Bill. Thursday was the last day for the Assembly to send its opinion on the Bill but it had asked for an extension of the session to debate and discuss the Bill before returning it to the President.
Meanwhile, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is meeting party leaders Digvijaya Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and AK Antony to discuss the Telangana issue.
Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had opposed the proposed bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in his speech in the Assembly on Wednesday.
Sources had said that the state government had conveyed that the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill has been debated by the Assembly only for a few days and many of the legislators are yet to speak on it and hence extension of the deadline was required.
President Pranab Mukherjee had sent the draft bill to the state legislature on December 12 and gave time until January 23 to discuss and return it. However, it is not clear what are the recommendations of the Home Ministry. There were precedents of giving extension of deadline to debate the state reorganisation bills.
The Madhya Pradesh Assembly was given extended time by the then President to discuss and approve the bill for creation of Chhattisgarh. If the time limit is extended beyond January 23, the Centre will have a very narrow window to get the Telangana Bill passed in the Parliament which will commence on February 5 to pass the Vote on Account.
However, experts are of the opinion that whatever the Assembly does, Parliament can go ahead with its legislative process for creation of the new state. The Union Cabinet had on December 5 given the go-ahead for the creation of a 10-district Telangana and outlined the blueprint for carving out the country's 29th state.
Telangana will comprise 10 districts and the rest of Andhra Pradesh will consist of 13 districts. Hyderabad will remain the common capital for both the states for a period not exceeding 10 years.
Comments
0 comment