Hyderabad,December 26:All 13 Congress ministers from Telangana resigned from the Andhra Pradesh cabinet on Friday, sending a common resignation letter by fax to party president Sonia Gandhi even as Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said, “The Union government has not diluted its stand on Telangana.”
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)-led Telangana joint action committee has meanwhile suspended its bandh till December 28 because of 10 th mohaarum which is very auspicious month for muslims.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which said it disapproved of TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s alleged highhandedness, formed a separate forum to raise the demand for Telangana’s statehood.
TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu accused the TRS of being responsible for Thursday’s attack on senior TDP leader Nagam Janardhana Reddy on the Osmania University campus, and warned that his party would not take it lying down.
“The attack was part of a TRS conspiracy against the TDP and its leaders,” Naidu said. “TRS has been decimated in the region and therefore hatched a plan to insult TDP and its leaders over the Telangana statehood issue.”
Students of Osmania University, however, met Reddy and apologised.
Despite Moily’s statement reassuring Telangana agitators, pro-Telangana groups want similar assurances from other Congress leaders. “We want it to come either from Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee or Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel,’’ said a senior Telangana leader, who did not want to be named.
At a meeting of the joint action committee, Chandrasekhar Rao is understood to have mooted a proposal to fix a deadline for the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
The closed-door meeting of leaders belonging to the TRS and other groups decided to continue the movement peacefully, TRS sources said.
“There is no bandh tomorrow,” said Congress MLA R. Damodar Reddy. “We appeal to the people to hold peaceful protests as they deem fit.”
At the first meeting of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC), formed yesterday, TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao is understood to have mooted a proposal to fix a deadline for the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
The closed-door meeting of leaders belonging to TRS and other outfits decided to continue the movement peacefully, TRS sources said.
Telugu Desam, which had attended the inaugural meeting of the JAC, stayed away from today’s meet in the wake of an attack on a senior party leader in Osmania university yesterday.
The JAC also appealed to TDP leaders from Telangana region to join the committee to strengthen the agitation.
“We appeal to TDP to be a part of the JAC to send a message to the Centre and one and all that entire Telangana is one in demanding separate statehood,” senior TRS leader N Narasimha Reddy said.
Congress MP Madhu Yashki Goud said all party MPs from Telangana have impressed upon the party high command on the need to grant separate statehood to Telangana.
“Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the December 9 resolution is not being diluted. Veerappa Moily has also clarified. We have asked the high command to implement the December 9 announcement in letter and spirit,” Goud said.