Friday 14 September 2012

APPSC Group- 1 Mains AP History


Formation of Andhra Pradesh State

The demand for the creation of Visalandhra gained ground after police action in Hyderabad. 

The formation of Visalandhra or united Andhra Pradesh was first of all the idea of the Communist Party. Sri Puchchalapalli Sundaraiah was the 1st to talk about the formation of the united A.P. In 1945, he founded a newspaper by name Visalandhra and wrote a book called Visalandhralo Prajarajyam(People’s government in Visalandhra) presenting a detailed blue print of the future scenario of the united province highlighting the various plans and schemes.

          In the general elections of 1952, the Congress came to power at the center but in Telangana the congress could not secure absolute majority as the communists scored a resounding victory and were in majority.

The formation of Andhra State on linguistic basis on 1st October, 1953 in turn influenced the nation wide politics, particularly the State of Hyderabad.

          The Andhra leaders, the communists of Telangana and Telangana Regional Congress Committee strongly supported the formation of Visalandhra. But the Congress leaders were divided on the issue. Swami Ramananda Tirtha, Burgula Rama Krishna Rao and others favoured the formation Visalandhra whereas K.V.Ranga Reddy, M.Chenna reddy and others opposed it.

          In December 1953, the Union Government set up a States Reorganisation Commission to consider the question of reorganization of States on linguistic basis with Fazal Ali as Chairman and K.M.Pannikkar and H.V.Kunzru as members.

          The S.R.C presented the report in September, 1955. The Commission recommended the disintegration of Hyderabad state and the formation of Visalandhra. It underlined the benefits of a large state comprising of both Andhra and Telangana with about 32 million people and considerable rich hinterland, plenty of water and raw materials. It even suggested that Hyderabad would be highly suitable as the capital.

          It recommended that in the next general elections likely to be held in 1961, if a 2/3 majority of the members in the new legislature of the Hyderabad state opts for a united state, Visalandhra could be formed. Until then Telangana should be continued as a separate state.

          The advocates of Telangana were elated with the report. But the majority of people including the Congress and communist legislators expressed their resentment. The communist legislators declared that they were prepared to resign to their legislative membership and contest again on the issue of Visalandhra. 

          In the vote taken in the Hyderabad legislature, of the 174 members of the House barring the Speaker, 147 who participated in the voting, 103 were in favour of Visalandhra whereas 29 voted for Telangana and 15 remained neutral.

          Meanwhile the Andhra Legislative Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution favouring the formation of united Telugu province.

          Under these circumstances, the Congress High Command convened a meeting of the representatives of the two regions in Delhi on 26th February 1956. 

          To dispel the doubts of Telangana leaders, certain safeguards were provided in the Gentlemen’s Agreement signed by the leaders of both the regions including the Chief Ministers and Presidents of the Congress Committees.

          The Gentlemen’s Agreement was signed by Bezawada Gopala Reddy, Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, Gouthu Lachchanna and Alluri Satyanarayana Raju on behalf of Andhra Region and Burugula Ramakrishna Rao, K.V.Ranga Reddy, Marri Chenna reddy and J.V.narsing Rao on behalf of Telangana.

          The main provisions of the agreement are summarized below.

1.  The administrative expenditure should be borne proportionately by the two regions.

2.  The educational facilities prevalent in Telangana should be provided exclusively to the students of Telangana with some exceptions. Further improvements in this regard should be made.

3.  Recruitment to the services shall be done on the basis of population of the regions.

4.  Domicile rules should be made on the basis of residence for a certain number of years, for example 12 years to assure the prescribed proportion to the recruitment of services for the Telangana area.

5.  Steps will be initiated to constitute a Regional Council for the Telangana region with a view to ensure its all-round development.

6.  The Council shall be a statutory body.

7.  The Council of Ministers will consist of members in proportion of 60 to 40 percent for the Andhra and Telangana regions respectively.

8.  If the Chief Minister is from Andhra, the Deputy Chief Minister will be from Telangana and vice-versa.

Government of India accorded statutory protection to the agreement. Thus Andhra Pradesh was formed on 1st November, 1956 with N.Sanjeeva Reddy as C.M and Trivedi as 1st Governor.

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