The Hindu : TRS rules out truck with Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 29, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

TRS rules out truck with Congress

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, JAN.28. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has ruled out having any truck with the Congress, and decided to go it alone in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

At a press conference here today, the TRS president, K.Chandrashekhara Rao, said they had decided to go it alone as the Congress had not responded `positively' to its package. " The package has clearly enunciated our stand (on Telangana ) as also the number of seats we will contest. Their response is not positive, though Mr. Pranab Mukherjee has spoken twice with me and said that we should work together," he said.

The TRS was against striking opportunistic alliances, he said and criticised the manner in which the Congress and the Communists dealt with the issue of having alliance with the it by taking their own time.

They could delay their internal decisions but it should not be the same while dealing with other parties.

There were clear indications from New Delhi that the nominations would start from February 16, with the Lok Sabha slated to be dissolved on February 6.

Asked whether his party would reconsider its decision if the Congress openly declared its support to the formation of separate Telangana, he said " It is up to them.. if they come, we (TRS leaders) will sit and discuss."

The TRS, he said, would receive applications on February 2,3 and 4 for the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Twenty teams of the party would then conduct a survey of all the constituencies, assess the potential of various candidates and submit a report to the election committee by February 8.

The eight-member committee would submit its report to him and the chairman of the Public Representatives Forum of the TRS, Narendra, by February 15.

Mr. Rao took exception to the remarks by the State BJP leaders that the TRS was the creation of the Congress. It amounted to insulting Telangana.

The people of Telangana would teach a fitting lesson to the BJP in the elections, he said. Mr. Rao urged the State Government to extend to the Telangana farmers whose crops were damaged by the recent hailstorm the same package given to the cyclone-hit farmers of the coastal districts.

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