TNN, Hyderabad :
The Seemandhra-dominated Andhra Pradesh assembly on Thursday rejected the AP Reorganization Bill, 2013. Amid pandemonium and with almost all the members having converged at the well of the House, speaker Nadendla Manohar put the resolution moved by chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy opposing the division of the state to voice vote and declared it as passed.
The 294-member assembly has an effective strength of 279 members of which 160 are from the Seemandhra region, including the speaker and the chief minister.
The bill will now be sent back to President Pranab Mukherjee after which it is slated to be tabled in Parliament in the first fortnight of February.
The House was adjourned for an hour minutes after it met at 9am in view of protests by the members. While the Seemandhra members rushed to the well of the House demanding that the resolution moved by the CM be put to vote, those from the Telangana region did the same with the demand that there should be no voting. The House met again at 11am, observed two-minute silence on the occasion of the death anniversary of Mahatama Gandhi, after which it was adjourned again.
