Telugu Desam Party (TDP) members protested outside parliament on Tuesday against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
The Union Cabinet had on December 5 cleared the parliamentary bill for bifurcating Andhra Pradesh to create a separate Telangana state with 10 districts.
TDP leader Modugula Venugopala Reddy said: “We have already moved the notice yesterday (December 09), we went to secretary general for the no-confidence motion. We are rendering our efforts; we are looking for the support of 50 members because we are small party. We are consulting all parties and definitely we are very much confident, we will get the strength of 50 members, definitely the government is not at all fit to stay in power and has lost all the credibility.”
In July this year, the Congress party had approved the creation of a new Telangana state, which had raised fears of violence in the region, which is home to global firms including Google.
Earlier, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said the bill would be sent to President Pranab Mukherjee with the request to make reference to the state legislature under Article 3 of the Constitution of India.
The decision to break up Andhra Pradesh and establish a new state of Telangana comes ahead of elections next year and critics say the Congress party is seeking to shore up its political fortunes after dragging its feet over the explosive issue for four decades.
Hyderabad, India”s sixth largest city, has been a bone of contention because it fell in the proposed new state carved out of the western part of Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh first came into existence after a hunger strike. Potti Sriramulu, a follower of revered freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi, died in 1952 after a two-month fast for the creation of the state.
Since India”s independence in 1947, successive governments have dealt carefully with demands for new states – creating three in 2000 – while ensuring demands did not spiral enough to threaten the integrity of the nation that now has 1.2 billion people with hundreds of languages, ethnicities and castes.
India currently has 28 states while the United States with a population of 300 million has 50. (ANI)