Hyderabad, January 12: As expected, Telangana Congress MPs and MLAs on Tuesday decided not to accord priority to “the option of resignation” to achieve separate statehood for Telangana. Instead, they will continue to build pressure on the Central leadership to introduce the T bill in Parliament.
The Congress leaders and workers, who included MPs, MLAs, MLCs and second rung leaders, met here for four hours and passed a resolution to this effect. The MPs decided to implement their action plan straight away. They would build a strong case for separate Telangana at the meeting called by Union Finance Minister and Congress core committee member Pranab Mukherjee in Delhi on Wednesday. “It will be a crucial meeting where our views on Justice BN Srikrishna Committee report and Telangana would be elicited,” CWC member K Keshava Rao said.
Only two of the 16 Telangana ministers – K Jana Reddy and Jupalli Krishna Rao – turned up for the meeting and worse still, only 10 MLAs of the total 50 Telangana legislators made it to the meeting. But as many as eight of the 12 Lok Sabha members and two Rajya Sabha members attended which lifted the spirits of those who attended the meeting.
During the course of the meeting, there was some disturbance when OU JAC members tried to disrupt the proceedings but Ponnam Prabhakar persuaded them to clam down and leave the venue.
According to sources, the MLAs were scared of attending the function in the wake of the warning given by PCC president D Srinivas that the meeting had nothing to do with the PCC.
This apart, already the Congress had warned state level leaders and MLAs against embarrassing the leadership with agitations and protests for Telangana, regardless of the pressure they are under from Telangana protagonists.
–Agencies