TRS pins hope on Chandrababu Naidu and Venkaiah Naidu

Hyderabad: With the Central government not budging an inch on the request to increase the number of Assembly seats in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, TRS leaders are now pinning their hopes on AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu to take initiative. They feel that more than the TRS in TS, it is the Telugu Desam in AP that is feeling the heat due to increased defections of leaders into the party.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was in New Delhi, could not formally meet Union home minister Rajnath Singh in North Block due to his preoccupation with the Uttar Pradesh elections. However, the two met at a function on Monday evening and exchanged pleasantries. It was here that Mr Rao asked the Union home minister to take steps to bring an amendment so that the process of the long-pending delimitation of Assembly segments gets underway.

However, it is believed that Mr Singh assured Mr Rao that he would only look into the issue once UP Assembly elections are completed. Mr Rao intended to take up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their meeting on Tuesday, which never materialised. Both the Chief Ministers have been demanding the Centre to bring a simple amendment to the AP Reorganisation Act which would allow constitution of a Delimitation Commission that will go into the increase in the number of Assembly seats.

If that happens, the number of Assembly seats in TS would increase from the present 119 to 153. In AP, the number of seats would go up from the present 175 to 225. Anticipating the amendment, both the Chief Ministers had encouraged large-scale defections of serving as well as former legislators from the Opposition into their respective parties. If delimitation of Assembly seats does take place, they would be able to accommodate the new entrants into their parties and further weaken the Opposition.

However, Centre has so far not made any move to bring the amendment as the Attorney-General’s opinion on the issue was otherwise. The A-G has already intimated to Centre that such an amendment to the AP Reorganisation was not possible and only a Constitutional Amendment to Article 170 would serve the purpose. However, Mr Chandrababu Naidu, after a series of meetings recently with the Prime Minister and the Union home minister, has been telling TD leaders that he has received assurances from them on increase of Assembly seats before the 2019 elections.

Karimnagar MP B. Vinod Kumar said, “More than Telangana, AP is interested in the issue. We hope Chandrababu Naidu and Venkaiah Naidu would do the needful. If the amendment is made, it will also benefit Telangana along with AP as the Reorganisation Act is applicable to both.”