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| Remove regional discrimination to stop division of J&K | | |
The Congress has cast its dice in favour
of creation of Telangana state after its
demand had been kicking up trouble from time to time.The proposed state is to be carved out from the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Hyderabad would serve as the joint capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh(residual state) for ten years. Two days ago the ruling Congress party announced its intention to carve Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh as the 29th state of Republic of India. The timeline for the creation of the new state involves an elaborate process, which has been allotted a 122 days, or at least four months. The split has to be approved by the Indian Parliament before the state is officially created.When created, Telangana will consist of 10 districts: Hyderabad, Adilabad, Khammam, Karimnagar, Mahbubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad,Rangareddy, and Warangal. With a population of over 3.5 crore, the new state will have 17 Lok Sabha seats and 119 Assembly seats.In view of the size of the population and the number of Assembly and Lok Sabha segments that the proposed state will leave hardly any scope for those supporting the demand for a separate statehood for the Jammu region.Rightly Chief Minister,Omar Abdullah,top leaders of Congress and PDP besides the separatists have opposed creation of Telengana simply to put a spike in the wheel of those securing statehood status for Jammu region which could be possible only by dividing the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has termed as a dangerous trend the proposed formation of the new state of Telangana, the genesis of which was in years of agitation. He recommended a reorganisation commission to decide creating new states."Telangana is being created on the basis of an agitation. It is not being created on the basis of any recommendation of a state reorganisation commission or something like that. I believe that this is a dangerous trend," the Chief Minister has said. Omar has said the message being sent to the people was that their demand for statehood would be accepted if they "agitate enough and agitate long enough".Omar hinted that the "sort of precedent" being set of creating new states on the basis of an agitation could have an impact in other parts of the country, including Jammu and Kashmir, where several groups had been demanding statehood for the Jammu region and union territory status for the Ladakh region.If the Congress okayed creation of it did so with its eyes on the next Lok Sabha poll.It's a cold and calculated political plunge the Congress has taken in carving out a separate Telangana state from Andhra Pradesh. The move has come at a time when the Congress is literally fighting with its back to the wall in the state that has in the last two Lok Sabha elections majorly helped it to secure power at the Centre.
Andhra Pradesh returned 33 members to Parliament in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections for the Congress, a figure that now appeared distant as the next General Election approach, primarily for two reasons --- a strong support for the nascent YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), formed by the son of former Chief Minister and Congress strongman YS Rajasekhara Reddy, and the challenge expected from the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and Opposition Telugu Desam Party.With 17 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats and 117 Assembly seats from the Telangana region at stake, the Congress hopes to cut its losses and anticipates reversal in the other two regions ---Seemaandhra (coastal Andhra) and Rayalseema --- where the YSRCP and the TDP are expected to bag majority of the seats.
If the National Confer ence,the PDP and the state unit of the Congress are opposed to the division of Jammu and Kashmir they can dilute the demand once they ensure that the level of prolonged regional discrimination was reversed.Those who have been supporting statehood status for Jammu do so whenever they feel the pangs of discrimination of people of the region of Jammu.Hence the only way to take the wind out of the sail of protagonists of Jammu statehood is to bring about parity between the Assembly and Lok Sabha segments in the two regions,give equal share to the educated youth in the Govt jobs and in the professional colleges.The Government needs to allocate equal funds for development in the two regions.If it is not done time is not far off when Jammu state will bcome a reality like Telengana.But this would weaken Inddia's case on Kashmir. |
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