Telangana Government today made it clear that while it does not want to invite conflict with the Centre, it would certainly seek recourse if the Union Home Ministry's directive over vesting certain special powers related to law and order in Hyderabad with the Governor is not rescinded.

State Information Technology and Panchayat Raj Minister K T Rama Rao, who is the son of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao, while talking termed the August 8 letter of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) as an unprecedented situation. We are not inviting conflict with the Centre, the Minister stressed, but hastened to add that if the Centre imposes its opinion (does not rescind the directive), the state government would be left with no choice but to take recourse. And what that recourse would be... it would be made explicitly clear in the coming days, he said.

Pointing out that law and order is a state subject, Rama Rao said any move by the Centre to infringe upon the rights of an elected state government is detrimental to the overall spirit of federalism. Noting that the Chief Minister had yesterday written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to rescind the said order, he expressed hope that Modi would respond positively to it.

He said after the AP Reorganisation Act was passed on February 18 this year and the State of Telangana came into being on June 2, not even a single noteworthy (untoward) incident had happened and wondered as to what necessitated the present move of the central government. In addition, the Telangana government has allocated Rs 400 crore-plus for enhancing security measures and improving law and order situation in Hyderabad, he said. We believe that it (the directive) may have come without the knowledge of the PMO. That could be a possibility, Rama Rao said.

-PTI