TRS meet on Telangana issue

Just a year ago, neither Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu nor Kadapa MP Jaganmohan Reddy’s mother Vijayamma would have imagined touring Telangana districts.

Such was the influence of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the protagonist of a separate state, that Y S Rajasekhara Reddy once said that one might need a passport to enter Telangana.

With the UPA government dropping no hint of an early solution to the issue and opponents gaining ground in its hinterland, a beleaguered TRS is holding a two-day brainstorming meet from Wednesday at Karimnagar. The meeting is expected to take crucial decisions to intensify the Telangana movement and come out with a “Karimnagar declaration.”

“We will give clarity on the issue of Telangana which has been put on the back burner by the ruling parties,” said K Taraka Rama Rao of the TRS. He said the Congress leaders have mortgaged the agitation and protecting Kiran Kumar Reddy by lobbying in Delhi.

“K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) owes an explanation to the five crore people of Telangana, on what he has been doing at the farm house and in New Delhi all these days while Telangana was burning. Today, the people of Telangana have realised that it was not Chandrababu Naidu but KCR, who is the main stumbling block on the way to separate statehood,” said Motkupalli Narsimhulu, a TDP Telangana Forum leader.

The recent public bonhomie between former TDP leader and Nagarkurnool MLA Nagam Janardhana Reddy with the BJP, a party openly committing for separate state and Nagam’s criticism on TRS’ questionable ways of handling the agitation, seems to have rattled the TRS leadership.  “When Nagam was shunted out of the TDP, it was TRS that provided  shelter to him. Naturally, the TRS is upset,” said Dr Laxman, a BJP leader.