Refer resolution and bill on AP division to legislature: Forum

Hyderabad, A group of Congress legislators in support of united Andhra Pradesh Saturday requested the Centre to refer both the resolution and the Bill on the proposed division of the state to the legislature for its views.

The United Andhra Pradesh Congress MLCs & MLAs Forum said it wanted the Centre to give due respect to the views of the legislature before going ahead with the division process. Forum Convenor S Sailajanath wrote letters to this effect to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Sailajanath and other members of the Forum, namely Paladugu Venkat Rao, Rudraraju Padmaraju, K Kanna Babu, G. Srinivasulu Naidu and Vijay also met Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy at the camp office and submitted a similar memorandum. We are expecting that both the resolution and the Bill on division of the state will be referred to the state Legislature for views, as required under the Constitution. There are rumours that the Government of India is thinking to bypass the Assembly resolution on this. If it happens, the same is most un-democratic and un-constitutional and against the true spirit of our great Federal Constitution. The Indian Democracy shall face so many challenges, the Forum said. The memorandum said the Centre ignored the sentiments of people of Andhra and Rayalaseema regions before unilaterally approving the division of the state to create Telangana. We are very much upset with the way decisions are being taken by the Government of India. It is our strong belief that GoI is not taking the leaders from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions into confidence, the Forum said. The memorandum also referred to a proviso under Article 3 of Constitution to support their case for referring the bill to state legislature for its views. Referring to the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's statement on December 9, 2009 saying that an appropriate resolution would be moved in the state Assembly, the Forum said, In recent history, three new states were formed only after the erstwhile (undivided) states gave their consent in the form of resolutions. No state in India was formed against the resolution of State Legislature.