Seemandhra JAC Wild

A day after Home Minister Chidambaram declared that there will be a committee constituted to take the Telangana process forward, the Seemandhra JAC created to keep the state united has said that there will be serious consequences if there were any moves to divide the state.

Visibly wild, the leaders of the JAC, led by Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, said that they were willing to lay their lives down to keep the state united. If smaller states were better for administration and governance, he asked why Tamil Nadu is not being broken up.

Tamil Nadu, Union Home Minister Chidambaram's home state, has been traditionally competing with, and losing many times to, Andhra Pradesh for huge investments and events, and is seen to be an immediate beneficiary if AP breaks up into 2 smaller states with much lesser clout than the whole. It's say at the Centre also gets bigger. It is in this context that Devineni's question must be seen.

It is popularly considered that dividing the state will see a reprisal of the agitation the Andhra and Rayalaseema areas saw when Chidambaram made his original December 9 statement saying that Telangana will be formed. Many leaders of the Seemandhra region are gearing up for protests again.