Hyderabad:
Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) leader K Chandrashekhar Rao's fast is now into its eleventh day and with doctors describing his condition as critical, supporters of the separate Telangana cause are all set to raise the pitch of their campaign, threatening to plunge Andhra into a spiral of violence.
Early on Wednesday, the Andhra Pradesh Assembly had to be adjourned for 15 minutes amid din after Chief Minister K Rosaiah said that Telangana could not be the sole issue for discussion and that the central govt needed time revert on the issue.
His family and TRS workers have appealed to KCR to end his fast in view of his worsening condition, but he's adamant.
Security in Hyderabad is high for the December 10 Telangana agitation, when all groups supporting the cause have called a "Chalo Assembly" bandh. There are growing fears that the march to the Andhra Assembly will lead to violence on the streets. Section 144 has been imposed in Telangana.
Armed reserve police have been summoned from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to work with local policemen and security forces to prevent protesters from entering Hyderabad. The government will deploy 140 paramilitary platoons, 66 tear gas squads and 9000 civil policemen on December 10, in anticipation of the unrest.
As Andhra's Congress government struggles to maintain law and order, Chief Minister, K Rosaiah, has said it's upto the Congress' central command in Delhi to decide the issue. He will reportedly fly to Delhi on Wednesday to meet with party president Sonia Gandhi.
Andhra Chief Minister K Rosaiah visited Rao over the weekend to request him to end his fast, but Rao refused. The government worries that reports of his deteriorating health will incite violence in a state that's already simmering over the Telangana movement.
KCR and his party, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) are leading the demand for a separate state of Telangana. Pro-Telangana protesters surrounded the house of Danam Nagender, Andhra's Health Minister, for proposing that Hyderabad should be made a Union territory. They burnt an effigy of Nagendar, described as an "anti-Telangana minister." In response, Nagendar said, "You have a right to protest but you can't make others forcibly shut their mouth. Everyone has a right in a democracy to an opinion."
At Osmania University on Tuesday, students have defied a government order to vacate their hostels. Professors have also threatened to quit if the police is not withdrawn from the campus. Students were lathicharged by the police on Monday. The University closed down last week till the December 18 as a precaution against violence, but it remains in many ways the epicenter of the protests for a Telangana state.
The Telangana issue raged in the Andhra Assembly on Tuesday, forcing the adjournment of the House for the day. The TRS wanted the Chief Minister to move a resolution on Telangana, so that parties could vote on the matter. However, this is dangerous for the ruling Congress, because this could expose its own divisions on the issue.
Representatives from the other two regions of Andhra - Rayalseema and coastal Andhra-are opposed to a bifurcation of the state.