Hyderabad:
The Budget session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly got off to a stormy start today amidst sloganeering by Opposition members demanding statehood for the Telangana region of the state. Chanting "Jai Telangana", Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) legislators tore papers of the Governor ESL Narasimhan's speech and threw them at him.
The TRS has said it will move a no-trust motion against the Congress-led government during this Assembly session. The party, led by K Chandrashekar Rao, is hoping to rope in other Opposition parties and some disgruntled Congress legislators to try and topple the government headed by Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy.
Currently, the Congress has 155 MLAs in the 294-member Assembly and enjoys a wafer-thin majority; the half-way mark is 147.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen, Communist Party of India, Communist Party (Marxist) and the Lok Satta are expected to support the no-confidence motion. The Telugu Desam Party has said it is not in favour of the move.
TRS legislator T Rama Rao said, "I am confident that there will be members of the Congress who are disillusioned with the Kiran Kumar Reddy government and will vote against it. I am sure all parties who have been campaigning against the government will join us."
The Chief Minister, however, remains confident that his government will complete its full term."People elected the Congress government for five years. None can bring it down. I am not someone to be cowed down," he said yesterday.
An agitation demanding separate statehood for Telengana has kept Andhra Pradesh in turmoil for over three years, since December 2009, when the TRS chief's 11-day hunger-strike fuelled an aggressive campaign. The Centre, which has promised a resolution on the issue on more than one occasion, deferred its decision yet again in January, partly because there is no consensus within the Congress over dividing the state.