Telangana shadow on New Year revelry

Hyderabad, December 30: Students of Osmania University, shepherding the Telangana movement, today threatened to scuttle revelries planned for New Year’s Eve as the cosmopolitan capital remained on edge a day before the proposed bandh called by pro-statehood groups.

Members of the Osmania University Joint Action Committee said they would not allow any parties on December 31 and January 1 at hotels, clubs, restaurants, resorts and corporate houses. New Year Eve parties are grand and lavish in Hyderabad, home to sevcorporate biggies.

“We will organise protests, dharnas and demonstrations in front of hotels, clubs and corporate houses where New Year parties are held and disrupt them,” said Bhaskar, a member of the committee.

The Joint Action Committee of the political parties, which has called a bandh tomorrow across Telangana, has backed the students.

A spokesperson for the hospitality industry, reeling from the impact of the movement, said they have been assured of police protection but will take a final decision tomorrow on whether to go ahead with the programmes.

The threat came on a day chief minister K. Rosaiah admitted the agitation had had a severe impact, leading to postponement of investment proposals and export of bulk drugs and delay in expansion programmes of IT and manufacturing firms. “Even the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), which had proposed a partnership summit in Hyderabad in January-end, wants to shift it to Chennai,” he said.

Rosaiah said tomorrow’s cabinet session had been deferred, but denied the decision was to avoid a confrontation with Telangana ministers who had announced they would boycott the meeting. “The meeting has been put off due to the bandh,” he said.

The ministers from Telangana sent a joint resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi last week. Home minister Sabita Indra Reddy, who had so far stood by Rosaiah, today joined ranks with her Telangana colleagues.

IT minister K. Venkata Reddy said they would have no alternative but to lead the agitation if the party high command remained mum on their demands. “We should not be blamed if the movement falls into the wrong hands leading to violence,” he said.

Acting governor E.S. Lakshmi Narasimhan, a former Intelligence Bureau chief, is understood to have given advice to the police and the administration on how to manage tomorrow’s bandh and the January 3 Vidyarthi Garjana programme slated to attract five lakh students from all over Telangana.

Prohibitory orders have been clamped in Hyderabad and night buses to and from the capital have been cancelled. As many as 115 platoons from the CRPF and RAF, besides 8,000 civil police personnel, will be deployed. A large contingent would be stationed at the Osmania and Kakatiya universities whose students are on a relay fast.

The students won a legal reprieve today with Andhra Pradesh High Court staying the government order shutting down hostels and canteens in the 10 universities across Telangana.

Centre plan

The Centre will shortly announce a mechanism for wider consultations on Telangana as promised by home minister P. Chidambaram. Sources said a non-political committee headed by the cabinet secretary could be announced in a couple of days.

The terms of reference of the committee were discussed at the Congress core committee meeting in New Delhi.

-Agencies