Assembly sharing row: Governor issues fresh direction to Speakers

Hyderabad: The contentious issue of sharing offices by the Telangana and AP state Legislatures in the existing Assembly Buildings complex has once again run into rough weather despite there being unanimity in an earlier meeting between presiding officers of the respective states.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, who is the head of Legislature for both states, has asked Telangana state Assembly Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary to discuss the issue with his AP counterpart Dr Kodela Siva Prasada Rao and sort out the issue amicably.
Accordingly the two will met on Friday.

Dr Kodela Rao had written a six-page letter to the Governor two days ago, complaining about non-compliance of the agreed issues from their last meeting held 10 days ago, that prompted the Governor to write to the Telangana Speaker.

The AP Assembly and Council’s first Budget Session will commence on August 18, which is less than a week away.

The sharing of accommodation in the existing Assembly building has been a bone of contention between the two states ever since the formation of Telangana on June 2.
In the last meeting, an understanding was reached to shift some of the offices and give them to the AP Assembly to allot to its officers and po-litical leaders including Deputy Speaker Mandali Budda Prasad. However, nothing has moved forward and the offices have not been formally handed over to the AP Assembly officials.

Though Dr Siva Prasada Rao contacted the Telangana Assembly officials and asked them to implement the decisions that were agreed upon, there was no response. He also reportedly tried to contact Telangana Legislative Affairs minister T. Harish Rao, but failed.

Irked by these developments, Mr Siva Prasada Rao wrote to the Governor, seeking his intervention in the matter.
However, Telangana’s argument is though the AP Reorganisation Act provided powers to the Governor to take a final decision on accommodations, it should be done in consultation with the Telangana Cabinet, which was not done in the present instance. All the accommodation plans for the two states had been completed much before June 2, the Appointed Day.

According to sources close to Mr Harish Rao, this was not the proper procedure envisaged in the Act. They added that the governor had rejected the suggestion made by the Telangana Legi-slature, which had submitted a detailed note in consultation with the Speaker stating that Legislative wings of the respective states should be divided like Secretariat buildings, without sharing a common area.

In this backdrop, Mr Harish Rao, along with Telangana Speaker Mr Madhusudana Chary and secretary S. Raja Sadaram, held a meeting on Thursday evening and discussed the Governor's directive.