Chandrababu Naidu, Revanth Reddy to meet today to iron out bifurcation issues

Hyderabad: Hyderabad will host on Saturday a meeting of the chief ministers of two Telugu states as Telangana CM A Revanth Reddy and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu will sit across each other to discuss a host of issues which have roots in the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. 

The issues remained unresolved as Naidu and the then Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao were at loggerheads between 2014 and 2019 during Naidu's first stint as truncated Andhra Pradesh's CM.

Political controversies, particularly the vote-for-note scandal in 2015, had cast a shadow on inter-state relations. Though there were attempts to break the ice by YSRCP chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy after the 2019 polls and he had held meetings with KCR, relations between the two states didn't see any progress. 

After Naidu returned as Andhra chief minister by registering a thunderous victory in the just-concluded polls, he extended an olive branch to his Telangana counterpart by writing a letter in anticipation of a meeting.

As Revanth Reddy reciprocated in the same vein, a meeting was scheduled on July 6 at Praja Bhavan in the Telangana capital.

Sharing of assets between the two states detailed in Schedules IX and X of the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014, sharing of Krishna and Godavari waters, pending arrears payable to Andhra Pradesh by Telangana, etc. are expected to be on the agenda of Saturday's meeting between Naidu and Revanth.

The meeting is being held more than a month after Hyderabad ceased to be the joint capital of both states.

Revanth Reddy is seen as a prodigy of Naidu as the former was in the latter's Telugu Desam Party for a significant part of his political career.

When Revanth Reddy was in the TDP, he was named as the prime accused in the sensational cash-for-votes scandal. During the BRS regime, the Anti Corruption Bureau had mentioned Naidu's name too. In connection with this case, Revanth Reddy was jailed for a while.