Das and Motilal Nehru. He was elected to the Madras Legislative Council as a candidate for the Andhra Congress from the Nandyala constituency. Fifth Session of the Andhra Mahasabha The Fifth Session of the Andhra Mahasabha was held at Nellore on 1 June 1917 with Konda Venkatappaiah as president. The session proved to be stormy and brought to light the differences between Circars and Rayalaseema. From the beginning of the Andhra movement the people of Nellore and Rayalaseema were lukewarm in their support for a separate province. The people of Nellore because of their proximity to Madras city did not like to severe their connections with the metropolis which they felt would remain outside the territorial limits of Andhra. In Rayalaseema the leadership was in the hands of Tamils domiciled in the area like Kesava Pillai of Gooty (Anantapur district) and Ekambara Aiyer of Nandyal (Kurnool District). They did not like the creation of separate Andhra province as it would affect the domination of the Tamils in Telugu districts. The Telugu leaders of Rayalaseema like Harisarvothama Rao of Kurnool supported the creation of separate Andhra province. In the Fifth Conference the opponents of separate Andhra were determined to defeat the resolution on the Andhra province. Of the 740 delegates more than 480 belonged to Nellore district. Fearing that the resolution would be defeated by the sheer numbers of one district Harisarvothama Rao proposed that voting should be district-wise, one vote being given to each district. The proposition was carried out as by the time of voting a large number of fresh delegates from the Circars joined the conference. The opponents of a separate province felt frustrated and met separately at the town hail and passed a resolution that a separate province would be desirable only if Madras city was included in it. B.N. Sarma and other leaders succeeded in removing the misunderstanding of the dissidents and they participated in the next day's session. The resolution requesting the Government to create a separate Andhra province was passed even though some prominent Nellor leaders like A.S, Krishna Rao voted against it. The amendment of the dissidents for the inclusion of Madras city in the Andhra province as its capital was rejected. But the Circar leaders realised that the support of Rayalaseema for a separate Andhra province could not be taken for granted, and that there was an urgent need to remove the