Andhra Pradesh boils as Congress mulls over SRC

11 Telangana MPs submit resignations

The Congress’s rethink, a stand contrary to Wednesday’s backtracking on Telangana by the UPA government, came after 11 party MPs from the region voiced their ire and submitted their resignations to party chief Sonia Gandhi. Her political secretary Ahmed Patel, however, tried to pacify them during a meeting in the evening.

Though initially reluctant to a new SRC, there now seems to be a growing clamour within the party for an institutional mechanism to deal with the demands for new states like Telangana, Gorkhaland, Poorvanchal, Harit Pradesh and Vidarbha.

Home Minister P Chidambaram’s Wednesday statement, that the government was in no hurry to settle the vexatious issue, led to renewed violence and protests across several parts of Andhra Pradesh.

When students of Osmania University, Nizam College and JN Technology University students turned violent, the police fired tear gas chells and rubber bullets to quel the protests. Police reinforcements have been sought for by the state government in anticipation of more violence in the days to come.

As statehood supporters took to the streets, almost the whole of Telengana region was  shut down with shops, businesses, theatres, petrol bunks and local kirana stores pulling  down shutters as a mark of protest against the Centre’s announcement.

The day-long protests culminated in an assault on TDP legislators from Telangana who had gone to the Osmania campus to express solidarity with the protesting students.