New Delhi:
The Congress top brass has summoned Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who has raised a banner of revolt over the Centre's plans to create Telangana, and the party's rebellious Seemandhra MPs to the capital in an attempt to mollify them and get them on board the state bifurcation bill. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said emphatically that the government will bring the Telangana bill in the current session of parliament.
After last week's drama in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, which rejected the statehood bill amid noisy protests from pro-Telangana members, the action has now shifted to the capital.
Here are the top 10 developments in the story:
Mr Reddy arrived in the capital this afternoon, but Telangana Rashtra Samithi founder K Chandrashekhar Rao and Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu have been drumming up support for and against the Andhra Pradesh (Reorganisation) Bill.
Mr Rao, or KCR, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this morning to express his solidarity with the government's resolve to get the bill passed in Parliament during the session beginning tomorrow.
The TDP's Mr Naidu held discussions with senior BJP leaders L K Advani and Rajnath Singh. He is also expected to meet CPI veteran A B Bardhan in the afternoon to persuade him to get the bill stalled in Parliament. YSR Congress leader Jagan Mohan Reddy has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar urging her not to allow the bill to be taken for consideration.
The GoM on Telangana, headed by Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, cleared the draft Telangana bill this afternoon, with only a few minor changes. The Andhra Pradesh legislators had moved a whopping 9,024 amendments. The amended bill will now go to the union cabinet.
A defiant Mr Reddy will be meeting senior Congress leaders in the party's war-room this evening.
He is scheduled to sit on a dharna at Shakti Sthal, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's memorial, tomorrow morning.
He will then meet President Pranab Mukherjee in the afternoon to urge him not to clear the bill.
In an all-party meeting convened yesterday by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath, Finance Minister P Chidambaram accorded top priority to the passage of the Telangana bill in Parliament during the fortnight long session beginning tomorrow.
The party, however, is apprehensive of the gameplan of the Seemandhra MPs. A group of six Congress MPs from the region -- R Sambasiva Rao, Sabbam Hari, V Arun Kumar, A Saiprathap, L Rajagopal and GV Harshakumar - have threatened to move a no-confidence motion against the government for its alleged mishandling of the Telangana statehood proposal.
They have not been invited to the war-room brainstorming session.
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