New Delhi: After the Indian Parliament’s lower house passed the bill for the creation of new state, the government is all set to pass the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, 2014 in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

The upper house could not pass the bill yesterday as the government and the opposition were unable to reach any consensus over amendments in the bill.

The meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley and BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu too failed to yield any result.

Even as YS Chowdhary and CM Ramesh of the Telugu Desam Party and KVP Ramachandra Rao of the Congress stood near the chairman’s podium with posters demanding “united Andhra Pradesh” and “Save Andhra Pradesh”, the house passed four bills in a row, after an agreement among parties.

Ugly scenes were witnessed when Ramesh tried to snatch some papers from Secretary General Shumsher H Sheriff. He apologised for his behaviour later.

While the bill for Telangana was expected next, the house was suddenly adjourned for half an hour around 4.30 pm.

When the house met again at 5 pm, Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien said passing four bills was enough work for a day and adjourned the house till Thursday.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla has however assured the bill will be taken up in Rajya Sabha Thursday, as hectic parleys went on between government and opposition leaders.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath was seen holding parleys with leaders from the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party on the floor of the house.

A senior leader from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said there are a total of 32 amendments which his party wants to incorporate in the bill.

However, if the bill is passed in the upper house with amendments, it will have to go back to the Lok Sabha for its approval before it is sent to the president for his assent, and the government feels this would create more trouble in the passage of the legislation.

The amendments that BJP proposes to move include one for granting a Rs.10,000 crore financial package to residual state of Seemandhra, as it will lose revenue when Hyderabad goes to Telangana, a BJP leader said.

Another amendment sought industrial concessions for north coastal Andhra, Rayalseema and backward areas of Telangana, sources said.

Special funds for setting up the capital of Seemandhra have also been sought.
Some similar amendments have also been prepared by Congress leaders from Seemandhra.
However, a Congress MP said they were ready to drop the amendments if the government did not agree.

Sources from the Congress added that party chief Sonia Gandhi has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to grant special status to Seemandhara for five years.