Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Thursday adopted a resolution moved by Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy rejecting the AP Reorganisation Bill.

The passage of the resolution by voice vote was preceded by Legislative Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar’s announcement that the debate on the bifurcation bill has been completed.

\Amid noisy scenes, the Speaker said that the House received 9,072 amendments on the Bill and 86 members participated in the debate that commenced in December second week. All these would be sent to the President as desired by him.

The Speaker put the resolution moved by the Chief Minister to voice vote while informing the House that he had not taken up the ten non-official resolutions he had received as they all related to the same subject. Later he adjourned the House sine die.

IANS adds:

The President had referred the bill to the state legislature Dec 12 for its opinion under Article 3 of the Constitution. The bill was tabled Dec 16 but could not be taken up for debate for several days due to protests by Seemandhra lawmakers, opposing state’s bifurcation.

The Chief Minister, who is strongly opposed to bifurcation, last Friday submitted a notice to the speaker for moving a resolution to reject the bill and send it back to the President with a request not to refer it to parliament.

Terming the bill faulty and incomprehensive, Mr. Reddy on Wednesday challenged the central government to table it in the same form in the parliament. He said if the parliament admitted the bill in the same form, he would quit politics.

Meanwhile, suspense continues on whether the speaker would conduct voting on the bill as being demanded by the chief minister and other Seemandhra legislators. The lawmakers from Telangana argued that there is no need for voting as the President has only sought opinion of the legislature.

Keywords: Telangana statehood issue, Telangana statehood Bill, A.P. Assembly logjam, Kiran Kumar Reddy government, GoM, Telangana Bill, Presidential assent