TRS, Sena disrupt address

It was the maiden address of the first woman President, but Pratibha Patil encountered a hostile Telangana Rashtra Samithi as soon as she started reading her speech while seated on the podium.

8220;Jai Telangana,8221; shouted TRS leader K Chandrasekhar Rao and his three party colleagues repeatedly before staging a walk-out. The TRS has announced to tender mass resignations from the Andhra Assembly and the Parliament to press for statehood and Monday8217;s protest is seen as a precursor to that. On Sunday, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi had tried to dissuade TRS members from going ahead with their protest plan, but as Monday8217;s developments indicated, he could not make a headway. When the President was about to conclude, Anant Geete of the Shiv Sena stood up to protest against the omission of the issue of farmers8217; suicides from the address. 8220;It is most unfortunate,8221; he said. Prabhunath Singh of the JDU protested against what he called 8220;an insult to Hindi8221; after Mohammad Hamid Ansari read out excerpts from the Hindi version of the President8217;s address.