The Centre's decision to initiate the process for creating a Telangana state comes nine years after the last exercise to form three new states whose journey was marked by brawls in Parliament and theatrics by Lalu Yadav who said Jharkand will only take birth on his "dead body."
The last time when three statehood bills came up in Parliament--August 2000-- during the BJP-led NDA rule, a woman MP was pushed around by a RJD member; Home Minister L K Advani just about escaped being assaulted; two adjournments preceded by unruly scenes and an equal number of walkouts. There were also protests on the streets in the run-up to the creation of the three new states.
The Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Bill and Bihar Reorganisation Bill were approved by Parliament in August 2000 to clear the decks for creation of the new states of Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkand in November that year.
A day after the Centre announced that it will initiate the process for Telangana statehood, speculation was how much time it would take for it to be a reality with Home Ministry officials saying it could be one to two years.
The Andhra Pradesh assembly has to pass a resolution for a separate Telangana state followed by introduction of a Constitution Amendment Bill which is required when a new state is created.
This Bill has to be passed by a two-third majority in Parliament after which a new state would be created after the approval by the President.
While angry RJD MPs forced the Government to defer the introduction of the Vananchal bill(Jharkand is popularly known as Vananchal) in the Lok Sabha, the legislation on the creation of Uttarakhand was tabled in the House by Advani after brushing aside the objections raised by Akali Dal's Prem Singh Chandumajra, Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress (both allies of the Government) and the BSP. Only the Chattisgarh Bill was moved without any hitch.
Belligerent MPs of the RJD and its ally Samajwadi Party forced two adjournments in the House on the Bill for creation of Jharkand.
Shouting slogans such as Bihar Vibhajan band karo (Stop the division of Bihar) and Vananchal bill wapas karo (withdraw the bill), they moved to the well of the House.
Interestingly, Congress MP Rajo Singh too jumped to their support disregarding his party's views on the bill.
Lalu, the strongman from Bihar who led the opposition to the formation of Jharkand, had declared on the floor of the state Assembly that the new state will be formed only on his dead body.
In the Lok Sabha, as angry RJD members led by former Union Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Jhanjharpur MP Surendra Prasad Yadav moved towards Advani after jumping over the secretary-general's chair, BJP MPs Rita Verma and Abha Mahto (both hailing from the Vananchal region) formed a protective cordon around him. But this failed to deter Yadav, who tried to push Verma out of his way.
The Bihar reorganisation bill finally was approved after Lok Sabha rejected amendments moved by some members from RJD, Congress and BJD, an NDA partner.
With the approval of the three Reorganisation Bills, the NDA Government had fulfilled its promise to carve three new states of Chhattisgarh, Uttara and Jharkhand out of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. PTI
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