The Telangana Bill, which was rejected by the Andhra Pradesh assembly on January 30, will return to the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday along with six bundles containing 8,049 amendments.
The amendments have been sent by 236 MLAs, who on Friday rubbished the Bill while claiming that it ‘ignored the very basis of creating Andhra Pradesh, the first linguistic state of independent India’
Though the assembly's vote does not matter, the rejection poses an ethical question for the Centre and the President. It is the President's prerogative to clear the bill for discussion and vote in Parliament in the session that starts on February 5.
A flurry of activity is expected in New Delhi on Monday.
Event Number 1
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy will be in the national capital along with 150 MLAs. He is expected to first pay tributes at Mahatma Gandhi's samadhi at Rajghat and then undertake a padayatra to the presidential palace to present a memorandum on the rejected Telangana Bill to Pranab Mukherjee
Event Number 2
50 Congress MLAs would be staging a protest outside Attorney General of India Goolam E Vahanvati's bungalow demanding that the latter expedite his legal opinion on the Bill
Event Number 3
YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy will also be in New Delhi. He is expected to meet senior leaders of the Opposition
Event Number 4
K Chandrasekhara Rao, leader of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, will be meeting senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley to seek the party's support for the Bill that proposes to divide Andhra Pradesh and turn the 10 districts of Telangana into India's 29th state.
Event Number 5
Attorney General Vahanvati will first hold a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before briefing President Mukherjee on the legal sanctity of the rejected Telangana bill. He would also advise the President on whether the Bill should be referred to the Union Cabinet or seek a legal opinion
Event Number 6
Congress MLAs are expected to meet Supreme Court senior counsel Fali S Nariman, who has asked the UPA government to tread cautiously on Telangana while quoting the SR Bommai case
[The SR Bommai vs Centre case: The judgment, delivered by the Supreme Court on May 11, 1994, defined the use of Article 356 and imposition of President's rule. When the then Congress government at the Centre dismissed the S R Bommai government in Karnataka in 1989, Bommai challenged the dismissal.
In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court held that a state government could be dismissed only under extenuating circumstances, and laid down guidelines for such a dismissal.
Though political parties have flouted the Supreme Court norms, the Bommai case has made dismissing state governments and imposing President's rule a little more difficult.]
Nariman has suggested that the President should, on receiving the rejected resolution from the Andhra assembly, forward the Bill to the Supreme Court for reference.
Event Number 7
Eight Congress MPs will meet Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar at her 20, Akbar Road residence to submit a no-confidence motion against the UPA government led by Vijayawada MP Lagadapati Rajagopal and Union Minister of State for Railways Kotla Jaya Surya Prakash Reddy.
Event Number 8
Three Union ministers from Seemandhra will meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi to submit their resignation.
