‘Trifurcation best solution for AP’

Union minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo has said trifurcation and not bifurcation, as decided by the UPA government, of Andhra Pradesh is the best solution and accused the Andhra Pradesh PCC chief and CM of “pursuing selfish motives and encouraging violent agitations”. Mr Deo, the tribal affairs minister and the sitting Lok Sabha member from the state, has written to the senior Congress leader A.K. Antony, who heads the four-member panel looking into concerns of state Congress leaders, that all three regions in the state have distinctive social and cultural features and should be made separate states. “I am of the considered view that the only solution in the present situation is to trifurcate the state and grant a separate statehood for Rayalseema. This will assuage the feelings of all three regions and is the only permanent solution,” he wrote. Mr Deo said he is aware that Congress Working Committee’s decision to create a separate state of Telangana is irreversible but “it is necessary to take stock of the situation in its proper perspective in order to find a final and acceptable solution”. He accused AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was in-charge of Andhra Pradesh affairs, of having a “predetermined” mind and he consulted only a few Telangana leaders and PCC president Botsa Satayanarayana. “The people of Andhra Pradesh are, however, of the impression that a hasty decision was taken keeping in view only the results of ensuing elections which is also based on purely speculative and theoretical assessments,” he wrote. He also lashed out at CM Kiran Kumar Reddy and Mr Satayanarayana, saying people felt one of them was keen that the state be divided as it would “enable him to achieve his life’s ambition of becoming CM”. The other, he said of Reddy, believed his position would be secured till 2014 only by prolonging the Telengana impasse.