YSR Congress party has called for 72-hour shutdown in Seemandhra to protest the decision taken by the union cabinet to carve out separate Telangana state.
Addressing a press conference Thursday evening, YSR Congress party president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy said the decision to divide Andhra Pradesh had pained him. He vowed to take all steps to stall the bifurcation.
Mr Reddy, who spent 16 months in jail in connection with a corruption case, has said he was not pained by jail as much as by today's cabinet decision. He was released from jail last month following conditional bail granted by the special CBI court.
"The decision of the cabinet has ridiculed the process of passing a resolution in the Assembly. Even when Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1956, a resolution was passed in both Houses of the Assembly. When Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand were created resolution was passed in the Assembly. This unilateral style of functioning of government for votes has put the entire state in disarray," Mr Reddy said.
Jagan, as the MP from Kadapa is popularly known, said his party would also approach the court to challenge the central government's action.
Blaming Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for the decision, he demanded that all MPs from Seemandhra to quit to pull down the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the centre.
He also demanded resignations of all state ministers to create a political crisis in the state to stall the division.
Claiming that other states were divided after their respective assemblies passed a resolution, Jagan wanted to know why the central government deviated from this procedure to initiate the process for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh by passing a resolution in the cabinet.
