Sonia meets senior Cong colleagues on Telangana issue

The Congress leadership today came under mounting pressure on the separate Telangana issue as violence and arson contined in Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh and TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao refused to call off his fast-unto-death.

With the party leaders from the region stepping up the campaign for a separate state, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and senior leader Pranab Mukherjee tonight held  consultations with other senior colleagues including home minister P Chidambaram and defence minister AK Antony.

On advice from the party high command, Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah held an all-party meeting in Hyderabad in an attempt to sort out the issue.

Incidents of violence and arson continued at various places in Telangana region on the second day of the 48-hour bandh called by Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in support of its demand for a separate state.

About 1,000 pro-statehood students fought pitched battles with the police at Manikeshwarnagar near Osmania University campus in Hyderabad on being prevented from proceeding to the campus.

The police, deployed in large numbers, used force to disperse the agitators.  TRS MLAs Harish Rao and E Rajender and BJP leader in the state assembly G Kishan Reddy were taken into custody when they arrived at the university campus where more than 500 students launched a relay fast, they said. Tension gripped the Osmania University campus following deployment of armed policemen, including Rapid Action Force, to thwart any attempt by pro-TRS students to take out a rally to the state assembly whose winter session began today.

Pro-Telangana activists set ablaze two school buses in busy Musheerabad area after ordering the students to disembark and in Adilabad, TRS activists vandalised the office of a paper mill at Kagaznagar smashing windowpanes and damaging furniture.

In Warangal district, agitating students chopped trees and placed them on highways to block vehicular traffic and TRS workers detained Delhi-bound AP Express for about 15 minutes at Kagaznagar in Adilabad district before they were dispersed
by the Railway Protection Force.

Meanwhile, doctors attending on K Chandrasekhar Rao at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) said though the leader has become physically weak, his vital parameters were normal and there was no cause for concern.

A group of party MPs from Telangana region G Vivekanand, Madhu Yaksh Goud, Sarve Sathyanarayana and Anjan Kumar Yadav also met the AICC in-charge for the state M Veerappa Moily and Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel to apprise them of the emerging situation in the state.

"We told the senior leadership here that the agitation for Telangana is not confined to TRS now but students and intellectuals have taken over it. Moilyji has told us that they are discussing and something positive will emerge in two days," Vivekanand told PTI.