Telangana: Bill with PMO, little hope of making in Winter Session

Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samiti leaders from the state and Telugu Desam leaders from Andhra Pradesh will start a fresh round of lobbying with the Prime Minister’s Office to try to push through the delimitation Bill for increasing the number of Assembly seats in both states. The PMO has not yet cleared the Bill proposal it has received from the Union home ministry.  Union minister of state Y.S. Chowdary and TRS senior MP B. Vinod Kumar confirmed that more intense efforts will be made to get clearance for the proposed Bill. They said that Chief Ministers K. Chandrase-khar Rao and N. Chandrababu Naidu had sought appointments with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to raise pending issues of their respective states. 

“As of now it is very clear there is no clearance from the PMO for the Bill, so it is highly doubtful it will be introduced in the current session of Parliament,” said TRS Parliamentary par-ty leader in Lok Sabha A.P. Jitender Reddy. Mr Vinod Kumar said he and Mr Chowdary will make a fresh bid on Tuesday with the Prime Minister to get the clearance as the draft Bill is ready and sent to the PMO.
The Bill if passed by Parliament will authorise the Election Commission to take up fresh delimitation of Assembly constituencies in the two states. This will increase the number of seats from 119 to 153 in Telangana state, and from 175 to 225 in AP.

Section 26 in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act will have to be amended for this purpose as there is a cap on fresh delimitation of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies till 2026.  If the PMO approves, the Union home ministry will have to place the draft Bill before the Cabinet for approval. Thereafter the Bill has to be introduced and passed in both houses of Parliament. This Bill is stuck in the PMO.

The current session of Parliament may conclude on January 2, and chances are remote as of now that the Bill will come up. “We will once again make efforts to seek the Centre’s approval of the draft Bill and introduce it in the current session. If time does not permit in this session, it may come up in the Budget session that will commence from January 29, 2018,”  Mr Chowdary said.