Last AP Formation Day celebrations on Friday?

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy will take the salute of the ceremonial parade on the occasion of Andhra Pradesh Formation Day on Friday.

With the Centre taking a decision in favour of bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and formation of new State of Telangana, Friday's celebrations may go into the history as the last celebrations and Kiran Kumar Reddy will be the last Chief Minister to participate in the ceremonial parade, to be held at NTR Stadium near Indira Park. While addressing a meeting at VisakhApatnam, the Chief Minister reiterated that he was an integrationist.

While the Telangana ministers are not likely to participate in the official celebrations, the Seemandhra leaders might use the occasion to reiterate their demand to keep the State united. The YSRCP has already demanded that the occasion be observed as Integration Day, the Telugu Desam Party leaders are divided on the issue.

The Andhra Pradesh State was formed on 1st November 1956 by merging the Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking areas of already existing Hyderabad State. The Marathi speaking areas of erstwhile Hyderabad State were merged with Bombay State and Kannada speaking areas were merged with the Mysore State.

The decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh to carve out Telangana has already got the nod of Union Cabinet and a Group of Ministers (GoM) has been constituted to complete the process. The Centre is likely to introduce the Telangana Bill during Parliament's monsoon session in the second week of December this year. Once the Bill is passed, Telangana State will be a reality and Andhra Pradesh, in its present form, will cease to exist.