Will Centre approve seat enhancement? TDP, TRS anxious

HYDERABAD: Ruling parties in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are eagerly waiting for the final decision to be taken by BJP national president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi with regard to enhancement of Assembly seats in both the States as per the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. According to sources, even though the Union Home Ministry recently sought the opinion of the Election Commission of India and other key departments with regard to the modalities for carrying out “delimitation” exercise, so far no decision has been taken by the BJP central leadership on increasing seats.

Sources in the BJP’s Telangana unit disclosed that the party central leadership is of the view that enhancement of Assembly seats will be helpful to the ruling parties in both TS and AP, which engineered defections from their political rivals. Hence, the saffron party’s Delhi bosses will only give their nod if the seat enhancement in the two States is likely to be beneficial for it, directly or otherwise. 

“The ruling parties in the two States, TDP and TRS, encouraged defections from their rival political parties with the hope that the Assembly seats would go up and all the defectors and the respective party’s defeated members could be accommodated in the new constituencies. Hence, seats enhancement is useful only to the ruling parties,” a BJP leader commented. 

It is learnt that Amit Shah will have to clear the proposal first. Later, Prime Minister Modi will take a final call. “When compared to ruling TRS in TS, ruling TDP in AP is exerting more pressure on the Centre to start the process of increasing the seats. Since many of the YSRC MLAs crossed over to the ruling party in AP, the yellow party leadership is pressuring the BJP central leadership to take a positive decision in this regard,” sources disclosed.

According to a TDP leader, the party leaders sought appointment with Amit Shah to request him to convince the Prime Minister to enhance the seats. “We are hopeful that we may get time with Shah in the next one week. After meeting him, we might get some clarity on this issue,” the TDP leader commented.As far as ruling TRS in TS is concerned, the pink party is also equally curious about the final outcome of the meeting as the party too inducted several legislators from opposition parties into its fold. If seats are not enhanced before the next Assembly polls, it would be a herculean task for the ruling parties in the two States to accommodate the old timers and newcomers (defectors).

When asked about the possibility of the Centre taking up delimitation exercise to increase the numerical strength of the State Assembly, TRS MP B Vinod Kumar told Express, “We are hopeful that the Centre might fulfil the promise of increasing the Assembly seats in both TS and AP. But, so far, we have no positive indications from Delhi.”Another TRS MP Boora Narsaiah Goud exuded confidence that the Centre might introduce a bill in Parliament to start the delimitation process.