While unending protests are rocking the Seemandhra regions, state capital Hyderabad appears to be sitting on a potentially-dangerous bifurcation powder keg. The historical city resembles a battlefield, thanks to a spate of stand-offs between Telangana and Seemandhra employees at several government offices.

Tension returned to key government offices like Vidhyut Soudha and Jala Soudha today after rival groups resorted to boisterous parallel protests. Police personnel have been deployed in large numbers to diffuse the tension and ward off any possible untoward incidents.

In Vidhyut Soudha, Telangana employees staged a ‘Maha Dharna’, protesting against what they claimed as an attack on one of their colleagues by their Seemandhra counterparts.

The clearly palpable animosities had their contagious effect on other offices like the Endowment Bhavan, Beema Bhavan and Aranya Bhavan. Similar protests were being staged at these office premises, raising the prospect of a stand-off between them.

The protests at the State Secretariat, which has been the hotbed of agitations, are however being carried out in a more orderly fashion. The state government clipped the agitators’ wing by imposing curbs on noisy protests. The agitating employees have been told to choose peaceful means of agitations.

The tension in government offices in the state capital is a fallout of the July-30th decision of the Congress party to bifurcate the state. It has only deepened the divisions further among the working class that had been co-existing peacefully for decades.

The polarisation, which is an offshoot of the simmering animosities, showed its first signs at the height of the Telangana agitation. It became all too evident now, with the the AP NGOs taking up cudgels against the Telangana decision.