TRS, TDP Clash During LS No-Confidence Motion Debate

TDP and TRS members openly clashed and engaged in a wordy duel in the Lok Sabha on Friday during the debate on the no-confidence motion moved by the TDP and others against the Modi Government at the Centre on the denial of Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh.

TDP member Jayadev Galla, while initiating the debate on the motion, referred to the manner in which Andhra Pradesh was divided in 2014 with the Lok Sabha passing the A P Reorganization Act. Taking potshots against the Congress which was then in power at the Centre, he charged that AP was unscientifically, undemocratically and irrationally bifurcated.

His comments triggered off loud protests from the TRS members. TRS floor leader A P Jithender Reddy, P Vinod, Balka Suman and K Kavitha immediately stood up and vociferously protested. Some of them even stormed into the well protesting the charge that the undivided AP was bifurcated unscientifically and in an undemocratic manner.

Speaker Sumithra Mahajan was irked over the actions of the TRS members and advised them to go back to their seats, assuring them that they could express their feelings when they were given an opportunity to speak.

Galla stood his ground and said that there was no need for anyone to get agitated as he was only presenting the facts. Continuing his speech he asserted that it was not Telangana but Andhra Pradesh that was the new state, and that it was left in the lurch after the bifurcation.

Explaining how AP had lost financially on all fronts, Jayadev said that the state had to forego annual revenue of Rs. 38,000 crores due to Hyderabad going to Telangana, as also the revenues from Singareni Collieries. This again attracted loud protests from the TRS members. Even as Galla refused to yield and continued his tirade, Jitender Reddy in a raised voice said that the Telangana state was formed after thousands of people had sacrificed their lives and only after the then Congress was convinced about the imperative need for the creation of Telangana state. Even the BJP had then supported the demand, he pointed out, and wondered how this can be described as undemocratic.

When Galla claimed that people from all parts of the then undivided AP had come and settled in Hyderabad and developed it to what it was now, and that many of the central institutions were denied to the new state of AP, there was again a ruckus in the House with the TRS and the TDP members entering into an argument.