Hyderabad, January 04: The Congress will send the same representatives _ Kavuri Sambasiva Rao (MP) and Uttam Kumar Reddy (MLA) who had attended the previous all-party meeting in Delhi on January 5, 2010 _ to the all-party meeting being held by Union home minister P Chidambaram in New Delhi on January 6.
Talking to newsmen at Gandhi Bhavan today, PCC president D Srinivas said “As per the system the Centre has invited the representatives from the recognised political parties of the state. It is for the parties to decide whether to send one or two representatives or to boycott the meeting. I will be available in Delhi on January 6”, he said.
Some members of Osmania University JAC met the PCC chief this afternoon requesting him not to send his party members to the Delhi meeting.
Srinivas urged his party leaders (also indirectly referring to CWC member and senior Telangana leader K Keshava Rao) not to air their views on the issue (Telangana) in public but to express their feelings before the party high command and its representatives. “There is no basis to think that something is going to happen at the meeting on January 6. Nobody will be asked to react immediately to a 600-page report to be supplied at the meeting,’’ he said.
Asked about the TDP’s demand that Congress president Sonia Gandhi attend the all-party meeting, Srinivas shot back saying that Sonia Gandhi had no role to play in this regard since it was a state subject.
“Why should Sonia Gandhi attend the meeting when I am the party president for the state. She plays her role as UPA chairperson and national party president. The TDP can not compare its president Chandrababu Naidu with Sonia Gandhi. It is good if Naidu wants to attend the meeting but we do not insist on it,” he quipped.
Replying to another query relating to former Kadapa MP Jagan Mohan Reddy, the PCC president asserted that the Congress would take an ‘appropriate decision at an appropriate time’ against party members attending Jagan’s public programmes.
“Jagan has no relation with the Congress and has his own agenda,’’ he said.
–Agencies