HYDERABAD: Telanagana is back in news in Andhra Pradesh with demand for a separate state by the opposition Telangana Rastra Samiti (TRS) and senior congress leaders. It has snowballed into an open attack on the four-year-old YS Rajasekahra Reddy regime.
The TRS held a huge public meeting at Nalgonda and its president K Chandrasekhar Rao has launched an ‘Ashirwad Yatra’ which will tour the Telangana district before March 6.
The state Congress, on the other hand, is divided between pro-CM and anti-CM camps. Congress veteran G Venkataswamy, the leader of the Telangana brigade in the party, has gone to the extent of toppling the government if the new state is not a reality before the 2009 general elections.
Popularly called Kaka, the 84-year-old invited YSR for a dinner meet at his Secunderabad home on Friday.
Later, however, Venkataswamy accused the CM of playing a double game with regard to Telangana. “He (YSR) talks to the high command against Telangana but tells us (local congress leaders) that he was just a postman,” said Kaka addressing a seminar on ‘Telangana demand-problems’ on Saturday.
The Telangana issue has become a raging political issue following Sonia Gandhi’s refusal to meet senior Congress leaders from Telangana when they went to Delhi along with Venkataswamy. The seniors threatened to hold a meeting at Bhongir on March 10, four days ahead of Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Hyderabad to launch the new airport at Shamshabad. The meet was postponed to March 24 on advice from locals.
The political campaign has also upset land auctions in the Hyderabad city by the government which aimed to raise a minimum Rs12,000 crore to facilitate its Indiramma housing and Jalayagnam irrigation programme. The BJP, CPM and TRS have recently stalled the auction of prime land by HUDA.
The Telangana campaign in the Congress camp picked up momentum after five TRS members threatened to resign from parliament and 16 from state assembly, if the UPA government did not make a positive statement on Telangana during the budget session. AICC functionary Moshina Kidwai, meanwhile, landed in Hyderabad to assess the situation on the threat call by veteran Venkataswamy. AICC sources say that Kidwai’s visit was to help Sonia Gandhi to make a decisive statement on Telangana during Hyderabad visit to bring an end to the campaign launched by Congressmen.
