Hyderabad, July 29: Now that the polling in the by-elections to the 12 Assembly constituencies is over, the champions of separate Telangana State — the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, the political JAC, the Students’ JAC and other organisations — have a stupendous task before them to achieve the goal of separate State.
This is so because the five-member Justice B N Srikrishna Committee appointed by the Centre on February 3, this year to examine the situation in the State with reference to the demand for a separate state of Telangana as well as the demand for maintaining the present status of united Andhra Pradesh, is scheduled to visit the districts of Telangana region to elicit people’s views on the vital issue of bifurcation of the State. The Committee has already toured the Andhra and Rayalaseema districts and gathered public opinion on the issue. Reports indicate that t
he people in many villages and towns in the Seemandhra region have expressed their views in favour of united Andhra Pradesh, though some sections have pleaded for formation of separate Andhra State and contended that this alone would help development of the backward regions in the area. There was also a plea for creation of separate Rayalaseema state.
Now that the by-elections in the Telangana region are completed, the Committee will be touring the Telangana districts to know the pulse of the people in the region. Political observers feel that the outcome of the by-elections in the 12 Assembly constituencies was not going to make much of a difference so far as the Telangana issue is concerned, because the seats were already held by the TRS and the BJP, the parties which are fighting for separate Telangana state formation. The results, however, would become handy to both the separatists and the integrationists in support of their arguments. If, by chance, the TRS-BJP combine loses even a few of the seats now, the integrationist forces would claim that the people of the region were not in favour of separate State and are for continuation of the present united State. This cannot be considered a valid argument because the poll outcome depends on several other factors too.
The comment of the Vijayawada Lok Sabha member and a staunch supporter of united Andhra Pradesh, Mr Lagadapati Rajagopal, soon after the completion of polling on Tuesday evening, said that 11 out of the 12 Assembly seats would go to those who had resigned earlier for the cause of Telangana, itself shows that he has realized the fact that Telangana sentiment is very strong in the region.
Surprisingly enough, however, Mr Rajagopal gave a twist to it saying that the victory will be because of “the commitment vote” and not “sentiment vote”. Mr Rajagopal said that they got a survey conducted through an agency in the 11 constituencies and it revealed that the TRS candidates are sure to win with huge majorities and the Telugu Desam party would lose deposits in all the places. Mr Rajagopal might give a twist to it, but this clearly shows that the Telangana sentiment is very strong.
——NSS