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AP cabinet meets, mum on Telangana

December 15, 2009 20:23 IST

The Andhra Pradesh cabinet met on Tuesday to discuss the tense situation after the Telangana fall-out.

According to the sources, the issue of police lathi-charge on agitating students of SK University in Anantapur figured in the discussions and some ministers differed with Chief Minister K Rosaiah and Home Minister Sabita Indra Reddy who defended the police action.

The chief minister urged all the ministers to exercise retrain.  Briefing the media after the cabinet, Information Minister J Geeta Reddy said the cabinet vowed to work united under the leadership of the chief minister to ensure peace and law and order in the state.

"We have never said any thing against one region or the other and indulged in any provocation nor we are going to do any such thing," she said.

She said ministers agreed with the views of the chief minister that if the present situation continues it will hamper and development and the welfare programs in the state. She, however, evaded the question whether the cabinet discussed the issue of a separate Telangana.

Asked about the ministers from coastal Andhra and Rayala Seema who had offered their resignations, Geeta Reddy said that no such resignation reached the chief minister.

"The ministers might have said something in an agitational mood, but none of them had submitted their resignation," she said.

Member of Legislative Council YS Vivekananda Reddy has decided to sit on indefinite fast in front of the collectorate in Kadapa from midnight. Earlier in the day, he started his fast in Hyderabad, but the police arrested him and shifted him to Kadapa.

Meanwhile, Speaker N Kiran Kumar Reddy held lengthy discussions with the advocate general, additional advocate general and other officials on the issue of resignations submitted by 140 MLAs of Andhra and Rayala Seema region. Secretary of  AP Legislature Sada Ram was also present.

 

Mohammed Siddique in Hyderabad