Samaikyandhra Flares Up Again

If you thought things were just starting to settle down in the state, you've got another think coming. In what is being seen as a significant move, leaders from 13 districts of Rayalaseema and Andhra are congregating at the nerve-center, Vijayawada, this afternoon, to create a unified Joint Action Committee (JAC) - a mother body of all the district JACs - to raise the decibel level ahead of the nobody-knows-what-it's-all-about meeting of AP leaders with Union Home Minister Chidambaram on January 5.

With key leaders from all parties, including names like Gali Muddukrishnama Naidu and Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, the meeting at 2pm today at the Lorry Owners' Union Hall at Benz Circle will formulate a plan of action to heighten the pitch of the Seemandhra movement for a United State ahead of the Jan 5 meeting.

The idea is to involve students, intellectuals and leaders at all levels in the movement to keep the state united, and pile on pressure on the Centre with continuous protests and agitations to avoid splitting the state.

Meeting with mediapersons, TDP MLA Devineni Uma today said that the splitting of the state was a plot by the Centre to weaken a large state with a significant say in national matters, and help other states in the neighbourhood get more of funds and water resources since 2 smaller states would not have much clout. He also said the self-respect of Telugu-speaking people would go down if their unity was forcibly broken.