TRS adopts new strategy on Telangana

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has successfully changed its strategy on the separate statehood issue by relaunching its agitation not on the streets of Hyderabad but near the Nagarjuna Sagar dam by opposing the release of Krishna river water to Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

It not only raised the issue of fluoride-ridden water in Nalgonda district but also succeeded in splitting the Congress into two.

“It is surprising that a strong man like Danam Nagendra (Labour minister and Greater Hyderabad Congress head) have openly criticised Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy’s decision to release water to the paddy fields of Delta districts ignoring the drinking water demands of Telangana region,” political analyst Telakapalli Ravi observed.

The TRS has also raked up the issue of disproportionate increase in the number of MBBS seats in the state.

A delegation of the TRS legislature party on Saturday called on Governor ESL Narasimhan and impressed on him that Osmania, Gandhi and Kakatiya Medical Colleges in Telangana did not get a single additional seat though 150 seats was sanctioned by the Medical Council of India.

All of them had instead gone to government colleges in coastal and Rayalaseema districts. “We demand that the NTR Health University now situated in Vijayawada must be split into three, one for each region,” said Harish Rao, who led the delegation.

Decision on Prez poll soon

The party is also likely  to take a decision on the Presidential election next week, former party MP B Vinod Kumar said here on Sunday. TRS has two MPs and 17 MLAs.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called up TRS chief Chandrasekhar Rao asking him to support Pranab Mukherjee’s candidature.

Meanwhile, the pro-Telangana outfits under the aegis of a Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) is planning to re-launch  the agitation for a separate state from August.  TJAC will organise a ‘Chalo Hyderabad’ programme on September 30 at the end of a month-long campaign.

The TJAC also said it opposed the creation of ‘Rayala Telangana’ state by merging two districts of Rayalaseema with the ten districts of Telangana even as it blamed the ruling Congress for “betraying” people of the region.

“Congress never kept its word on creation of a separate state.  We have to bury the Congress by next elections (in 2014),” the JAC leaders told reporters at the end of their meeting. The JAC was also critical of the TDP alleging “dual stand” on the statehood issue.