CM bows to TRS; now, Andhra on the boil- TNN, Nov 20, 2010,

CM bows to TRS; now, Andhra on the boil

TNN, Nov 20, 2010, 06.05am IST



HYDERABAD: In a day of dramatic developments in the state on Friday, the Rosaiah government did an about turn and put off the written examination for recruitment of sub-inspectors of police, ostensibly on the directive of the Congress high command in New Delhi. But while it restored calm in Telangana with the region's organisations led by the TRS calling off their proposed bandh on Saturday, the Seemandhra region erupted in protest with its students calling for an educational bandh in the regions on Saturday in protest against the postponement of the SI exams.

The day began on a quiet note with the state marshalling its resources to maintain law and order during Saturday's bandh. While there was calm on the Osmania University campus, the TRS was busy forming action teams to gherao the residences of Seemandhra leaders in Hyderabad and that of Congress and TDP leaders in the Telangana region on bandh day on Saturday.

However, the unrest in the state capital had its rumblings in New Delhi. Following warnings from Telangana Congress leaders that the situation in the state was threatening to deteriorate as it did in November last year after TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao went on a hunger strike, AICC general secretary M Veerappa Moily cancelled his scheduled visit to Hyderabad on Friday and briefed Congress president Sonia Gandhi about the situation in AP.

In the meantime, a belligerent chief minister K Rosaiah, who had maintained a day earlier that the SI exams will not be postponed at any cost, took off for Guntur in the morning. While he was taking part in a Congress formation day celebrations in his home town, he received a phone call from Delhi directing him to put off the SI recruitment exams until further notice, sources told TOI.

Accordingly, home minister Sabita Indra Reddy called a press conference at 1 pm and announced that the SI recruitment exams have been put off across the state until a conducive atmosphere is restored. The TRS immediately called off the bandh scheduled for Saturday while the state machinery sighed a heave of relief that the anticipated trouble the next day has been averted.

But even as OU students took out a victory procession, protests erupted in Seemandhra educational institutions. Students belonging to Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, Acharya Nagarjuna University in Guntur and Sri Krishnadevaraya University in Anantapur boycotted their classes and staged protests including burning Rosaiah's effigy. Exams in ANU were postponed because of the unrest.