Hyderabad, December 10: With separate Telangana shrill rising on Wednesday, almost all Congress legislators, including ministers M Mukesh Goud and Danam Nagendar, have dashed off a letter to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi urging her to make Hyderabad a Union Territory.
There were at least eight signatories to the letter which talked about the cosmopolitan character of Hyderabad, which included a large number of foreign employees and students.
“There is clamour among the people of Hyderabad cutting across barriers of caste, religion, language and class to accord Union Territory status for the city so as to preserve its cosmopolitan character and accelerate its growth as an IT hub, bio-tech, pharma and other emerging technologies. Several sections are in favour of Hyderabad being given the status of a union territory, rather than making it part of Telangana,” BC welfare minister M Mukesh Goud said in his letter. He said Hyderabad witnessed unprecedented growth in the past few years and emerged as the fifth largest city in the country after it was made Greater Hyderabad. “The demographic profile of the city has changed tremendously over the years and today the native inhabitants constitute only a modest percentage,” he observed.
Similarly, Hyderabad has a large number of central public sector undertakings, scientific research institutes like CCMB, IICT, defence establishments like DRDL, DRDO, space research organisations, Nuclear Fuel Complex, many national and international agricultural research stations and major academic institutes,” he added.
“The twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad also have a huge population of minorities and they entertain serious apprehensions about their future if GHMC becomes part of separate Telangana state,” the minister pointed out.
“Added to these were the results of the general elections earlier this year in which the TRS was routed and the TDP, which had allied with it, lost badly,” Mukesh Goud said.
“The voting pattern in the recent elections to the Greater Hyderabad
Municipal Corporation (GHMC) clearly reinforces the concerns of minorities and non-local people over the future status of Hyderabad. All sections have apprehensions about their future if a separate Telangana state is formed with Hyderabad as its nerve centre. Their concerns need to be looked into,” Mukesh added.
-Agencies