Andhra, Telangana in bitter political tussle

Suresh Dharur

Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, June 29

The cash-for-vote scam, involving the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party, is snowballing into a full-blown inter-state political war between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over the control of law and order in Hyderabad which will be the common capital for a period of ten years.

At the crux of the bitter wrangle is a provision in the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014 that gives special powers to the Governor, who is common to both the states, to oversee law and order in Hyderabad, a bustling cosmopolitan city of 80 lakh population with a significant chunk hailing from the residuary Andhra Pradesh.

AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his TDP leaders have been demanding invocation of section 8 of the AP Reorganisation Act and handing over special powers to the Governor ESL Narasihman. They alleged the Telangana Government was resorting to “illegal tapping” of their phones and argued that there was no safety and security for the people from Andhra who have made Hyderabad their home.

“We have credible evidence that the Telangana Government had authorised and has been illegally tapping the phones of our various functionaries and officials. We will prove it beyond any doubt,” said Dr P Prabhakar, Communications Advisor to AP government.

Rubbishing the charge, the Telangana Home Minister N Narasimha Reddy said the allegation was a diversionary tactic of the TDP leaders to wriggle out of the cash-for-vote scam in which their leaders were caught red-handed.

The TDP government in AP feels the Governor should have taken a “pro-active” role in taking action against Telangana government for indulging in phone tapping of political opponents.

But the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telangana is strongly opposed to the Governor overseeing law and order in Hyderabad on the ground that the city is an integral part of Telangana and that law and order is a state subject.

“There is no reason for invoking section 8 since there has not been a single incident concerning law and order in the city or a situation that threatened the life and property of people of AP living in the capital since the creation of Telangana last year,” Narasimha Reddy said.

The allegations and counter-allegations had started soon after the arrest of a senior TDP legislator A Revanth Reddy on May 31 after he was caught red-handed while offering a bribe to a nominated MLA in Telangana Assembly Elvis Stephenson to cast his vote in favour of a TDP candidate in the elections to Legislative Council.

A week later, an audio tape surfaced purportedly containing Chandrababu Naidu’s conversation with Stephenson and assuring him that “all commitments would be honoured” if he voted in favour of TDP.