Southern Zonal Council meeting postponed

VIJAYAWADA: The 29th Southern Zonal Council meeting, scheduled to be held in Tirupati on March 4, has been postponed. The meeting was scheduled to be chaired by Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah. Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Lieutenant Governors of Andaman Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands were expected to participate.  

The Zonal Council meetings are held for better coordination between the States and to resolve the pending inter-state disputes. 

Several issues such as river water disputes between the Southern states and the pending bifurcation issues between AP and Telangana were scheduled for discussion in the proposed meeting. Important among them are the disputes between the two States over sharing of waters of Krishna and Godavari. Not mentioning the reasons, Chittoor district collector M Harinarayan issued a statement on Monday stating that the meeting has been postponed.

It is learnt that Amit Shah’s busy schedule in poll-bound States led to the postponement of the meeting.Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan was scheduled to meet Shah and the BJP-Jana Sena combine had even decided to finalise the candidate for the Tirupati Lok Sabha bypollat that time.