Telangana issue continues to rock AP Assembly

The State Legislative Assembly could function for hardly 14 minutes on Wednesday with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Telugu Desam Party and Bharatiya Janata Party members disrupting the proceedings seeking discussion on the suicides for the Telangana cause and demanding resolution on statehood for the region.

As soon as the House met at 9 am on Wednesday, the TRS, TDP and BJP MLAs and independent member Nagam Janardhan Reddy gave separate adjournment motions seeking discussion on Telangana issue. However, Speaker Nadendla Manohar disallowed all the motions which triggered protest and TRS and TDP members rushed to the Speaker's podium to press for their demand. Following uproar, the Speaker adjourned the House for 15 minutes. 

The House met again at 11.22 am. The Speaker tried in vain to pacify the agitating members. Expressing regret over the suicides, Nadendla Manohar condoled the deaths and asked the protesting members to resume their seat so that the House could discuss and find a solution for the problem. However, the uproar continued despite repeated requests by the Speaker which consequently led to the adjournment of the House again for 10 minutes. Earlier, some Congress members from the region too joined the protest and shouted pro-Telangana slogans. 

Similar scenes were witnessed when the House resumed its business at 12.13 pm. Amidst the din, Finance Minister Anam Ramnarayana Reddy presented the supplementary estimates of expenditure for 2011-12. Seeing no signs of restoration of order in the House, the Speaker adjourned the House for the day at about 12.17 pm. 

It may be mentioned that that House was scheduled to have short discussion on steps to eradicate corruption, power supply position and Minimum Support Price for agricultural produce. However, the Telangana issue over-shadowed all other issues. Thursday being the last day of 40-day long budget session of the State Legislative Assembly, there are remote chances that the House would discuss these issues.