Impact of Note For Vote Case On Common Capital: IYR  

This chapter deals with a very critical period after the bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. It discusses the idea of common capital between for two states, the rationale behind it and how it got completely eclipsed by events which followed. In the words of the author, “The final nail on the section was struck by Sri Chandrababu Naidu when he, after the vote for note case, decided to leave Hyderabad in a hurry and start operating from Vijayawada.”

Section 8 in the AP Reorganisation Act is a unique section not to be found in any other reorganisation acts reorganizing the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and others into states of Bihar and Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, et cetera. That is because Andhra Pradesh was the only state in which the demand for division came from an area where the capital is located. In other states the residuary state happened to be the state where the capital was located and the new states after division started looking for building their own capital. But since here the state was getting divided with the capital located in the area which is the scene of the agitation demanding division and there was substantial population from Andhra area settled in Hyderabad and there were genuine apprehensions about safety of their life and property and as the act provides for Hyderabad to be the common capital for both the states for a period of 10 years, Section 8 was incorporated in the act to safeguard the interests of people from Andhra area living in capital region and also facilitate smooth functioning of both the governments operating from the common capital.

This section in the act reads as follows:

8. (1) On and from the appointed day, for the purposes of administration of the common capital area, the Governor shall have special responsibility for the security of life, liberty and property of all those who reside in such area.

(2) In particular, the responsibility of the Governor shall extend to matters such as law and order, internal security and security of vital installations, and management and allocation of Government buildings in the common capital area.

(3) In discharge of the functions, the Governor shall, after consulting the Council of Ministers of the State of Telangana, exercise his individual judgment as to the action to be taken:

Provided that if any question arises whether any matter is or is not a matter as respects which the Governor is under this sub-section required to act in the exercise of his individual judgment, the decision of the Governor in his discretion shall be final, and the validity of anything done by the Governor shall not be called in question on the ground that he ought or ought not to have acted in the exercise of his individual judgment.

(4) The Governor shall be assisted by two advisors to be appointed by the Central Government.

It should be recalled in this connection that when the process of division was going on, the Telangana leadership was very focused and had a good liaisoning in Delhi and lobbied well to get the Reorganisation Act in their best interests. On the other hand the leaders from Andhra Pradesh irrespective of party affiliations were lobbying more for their own personal interest and never cared to look into the details of the act, nor took steps to protect the interests of the new state and its population in case the division was going to be a reality. This total negligence on the part of the AP leadership could be seen at every stage and every part of the AP Reorganisation Act. We had a chief minister who was trying to build his independent political future and making his own calculations for his political future and talking of a united states but who never thought it fit to have a minute look at the reorganisation bill and suggest provisions in the interests of Andhra area. This could have been done by all the political parties irrespective of the public stand they have taken on the State’s bifurcation by coming together at an informal level and lobbying for provisions in the act that would be favourable for Andhra area. That could be seen in a number of provisions of the act including section 8.

The major demand from the people from Andhra area was to make Hyderabad a union territory in case the division of the state was inevitable. From that demand to the way Section 8 is worded the gap is huge. The wording of the section made it toothless and the attitude of the Governor of the combined state and officials of the Central home ministry made the section purposeless. The final nail on the section was struck by Sri Chandrababu Naidu when he, after the vote for note case, decided to leave Hyderabad in a hurry and start operating from Vijayawada.

Since rules for operationalising certain sections need to be framed, we chalked out a plan that the rules governing this section should provide for representation for the police force from both the states, as Hyderabad was going to be the common capital for 10 years to come. The Telangana government vehemently opposed this stating that law and order is basically a state subject and as Hyderabad is located in Telangana the responsibility squarely lies with the government of Telangana. Our argument was that if it was so, where is the need for Section 8, discretionary powers to the Governor under that section, and appointment of two advisors to the Governor to advise him on implementation of this particular section. The Union Home Secretary Mr Anil Goswami was there during the process of division. As mentioned by me earlier, the Telangana leadership maintained good relations and cultivated the key officials in Government of India to get the process of bifurcation expedited and take it to its logical conclusion. He was part of this nexus and to that extent had specific preference for Telangana. The fact that Mr Rajiv Sharma who subsequently became the chief secretary of Telangana also worked as Additional Secretary, Home, in Delhi facilitated a better liaison for the Telangana government from day one. Regarding Section 8 I had a serious argument with Mr Anil Goswami. When I met him in Delhi and mentioned to him the need to have police force of Hyderabad city drawn from both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, his answer was that no self-respecting state would like to have a police force from the other state working in their jurisdiction. I shot back, saying if it is so why the division was done and a specific section incorporated in the reorganisation act giving powers and special responsibility to the Governor for the security of life, liberty and property of all those who reside in the common capital area. Having put Section 8 in the act why was the Central government hesitating now to operationalise it? He didn’t expect this from me and was taken aback. He didn’t have an answer for the question. I also met the Cabinet Secretary and made a forceful plea for deploying police force from both the states in the common capital area. I took the opportunity of meeting the President of India when he was in Hyderabad and explained to him about the need to have forces drawn from both the states in the common capital area. Since the Central government has taken a view that law and order is a state subject and has to be managed by the respective states in spite of a forceful plea from Andhra Pradesh it was decided that thecommon capital area police force will be from Telangana and there is no provision in the act for drawing police force from both the states to manage law and order.

The role of the Union Home Secretary in implementation of the reorganisation act is very crucial. Mr Anil Goswami who was the home secretary at the time of the division of the state continued in the same post even after. He definitely had a soft corner for Telangana which had a major implication when issues concerning both the states were being sorted out. Luckily for us he got into an issue connected to a Congress leader Mr Mating Singh and had to resign. He was replaced by Mr LC Goyal, a batch mate of mine. Things looked good as I had excellent rapport with my batch mate. He was getting an appreciation of the issues and was willing to sort out the issues in a fair and equitable manner which is all that we wanted. But in spite of the fact that he was in a tenure post for two years he had to go within six months because of an issue on Nagaland agreement. The one who replaced him, Mr Rajiv Maharshi, is squarely responsible for all the subsequent problems that cropped up between our two states in terms of division of Schedule 9 and Schedule 10 institutions. He never bothered to even conduct one meeting between the two chief secretaries to sort out the issues and was unwilling even to give an appointment to meet him when an appointment was sought. He continued to be the Home Secretary till I retired and I did not have a single meeting during that period to sort out any issue whatsoever. This led to avoidable friction between AP and Telangana in terms of division of the Schedule 10 and Schedule 9 institutions.

Meanwhile things were changing fast in Hyderabad. Haunted by the vote-for-note case Sri Chandrababu Naidu took a decision to shift the capital to Vijayawada and he started functioning from Vijayawada with his staff from the camp office built on the irrigation land. As I could find from conversations with him earlier, he never had any intention of leaving Hyderabad anywhere in the near future. He used to remark that we also have a responsibility for the Andhra population settled in the common capital area and we cannot leave them just like that and go. He got the camp office built at Vijayawada so that that would be a place for him to work while operating from Hyderabad. The manner in which ‘l’ block in the Secretariat at Hyderabad was chosen for AP CM’s office on vastu considerations and renovated at a huge expense itself shows he at that time had no intention of leaving Hyderabad. It got ready by Vijayadasami time in 2014 and we moved in. But after the vote-for-note case and the subsequent developments he decided to leave Hyderabad and work full time from the camp office in Vijayawada. With this the Section 8 lost its relevance. “When your government itself is not in Hyderabad what the need for Section 8 is,” used to be the comment from officers from Government of India. Thus a silent burial was given to an important section in the act which never got operationalised in the first place. If the Central government was sincere about this issue they should have declared the common capital area as a union territory so that both the state governments operated from the same place just as it is happening in Chandigarh. If that arrangement was there perhaps the AP government would never have left Hyderabad. In the absence of such an arrangement, the subsequent developments such as the vote-for-note case effectively decided that Hyderabad would no longer be the common capital and would exclusively be the capital for Telangana. The two advisers to the Governor became ornamental with no work. The most important work for the Governor under this section was more in terms of allocation of quarters whereever there was a little problem. Even that ceased to be an issue after the secretariat itself moved from Hyderabad to Amaravati. The last quarters issue in which the Governor intervened was when I vacated the quarter earmarked for the chief secretary. Andhra Pradesh government allotted it to Mrs Lakshmi Parthasarathi, Vice Chairman of Amaravati Development Corporation. The Governor intervened on behalf of the Telangana government to get it allocated to the chief secretary, Telangana.

The role played by the Hyderabad police, especially Commissioner of Police Mr Mahendra Reddy in maintaining law and order and ensuring nobody felt discriminated against in the period subsequent to the division of the state is commendable. Common people forgot about Section 8 since the purpose for which it was put in the act was served by the Hyderabad police force under his leadership.

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