Students fought pitched battles with security personnel on the Osmania University campus for the second consecutive day on Monday while some Congress legislators from Telangana disrupted Governor E. S. L. Narasimhan’s address to the joint session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and Council.

The legislators were protesting against the terms of reference of Justice Srikrishna panel, set up by the Centre to examine the issue of statehood.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) legislators from Telangana boycotted the governor’s address in protest, saying the panel’s terms of reference were unfavourable for the demand for separate state.

Opposition to the terms of reference spilled onto the streets for the second day with students of Osmania University taking out a rally. The rally was organised to protest Sunday night’s police baton-charge, in which 30 students and six mediapersons were injured, and to express solidarity with the 15 MLAs who resigned on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, assembly Speaker N. Kirankumar Reddy accepted the resignations of 12 of 15 the Telangana MLAs who had quit on Sunday.

Resignations of all 10 legislators of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, TDP and BJP were accepted while no decision was taken on two MLAs from the Congress and one from the Praja Rajyam Party.

The 15 resignations were submitted after the all-party Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) called upon legislators from the region to quit en masse to mount pressure on the Centre. But the JAC fiat seems to have fallen flat as no more legislators (Telangana has 119 MLAs in a House of 294) came forward to resign on Monday. There was speculation that the two Congress MLAs who quit on Sunday want to take back their papers if their party offers some face-saver.

‘Fast-unto-death’

Four students from Andhra Pradesh launched a fast-unto-death on Monday in New Delhi, demanding that the Centre immediately pass a resolution in Parliament in favour of a separate Telangana state. The students from Osmania and other Andhra universities launched their fast at Jantar Mantar. They also asked elected representatives from Telangana region to resign in protest against the terms of reference of the Justice Srikrishna committee.