Hyderabad, December 24: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Congress and Praja Rajyam in Telangana have decided to form a joint action committee to spearhead the Telangana movement.
The newly-formed JAC called a bandh in Telangana region for 48 hours from tomorrow and appealed to people to maintain peace and not to resort to violence.
They also decided to rope the Telugu Desam into the committee and received support from the BJP and CPI.
TRS president K Chandrasekhara Rao, Congress legislators K Jana Reddy and R Damodar Reddy, and Praja Rajyam legislator A Anil met tonight after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s statement on Telangana.
However, they decided that there would be no leader for the JAC, saying that Telangana itself was its leader.
Speaking to presspersons, Chandrasekhara Rao alleged that the Congress had betrayed T-people again and the bottomline of Chidambaram’s announcement was that they put the creation of Telangana State on the backburner. He criticised that the announcement did not mention any time frame for the wide range of consultations.
“With whom would the Centre hold consultations?’’ he wanted to know.
The TRS president said that the proposed rally in Warangal tomorrow was cancelled.
All public representatives right from the ward member to Parliament member will resign tomorrow.
Rao questioned Chief Minister K Rosaiah why the latter was biased against Telangana. While Section 144 and 30 were not imposed and agitations were allowed in the Andhra region, the curbs were imposed in Telangana.
The government was dealing with the situation in Telangana in a high-handed manner, and arrested and caned students, he said. Assuring people that the political parties were taking the movement forward, he urged them to agitate peacefully to humble the Centre. He made a special appeal to students not to end their precious lives.
Congress legislator and former minister K Jana Reddy said Chidambaram’s announcement disappointed T-people. He appealed to people not to get emotional but express their protest by observing the bandh tomorrow and not to frighten any section of the society.
He wanted the Centre to make another announcement making its stand clear on Telangana.
Accusing the State Government of regional bias in maintaining law and order, he wanted the government and the police to maintain restraint during the bandh.
The agitation would be intensified step by step, he said.
–Agencies