The Hindu : Alliance with Congress only if it is clear on Telangana: TRS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 02, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Alliance with Congress only if it is clear on Telangana: TRS

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, FEB. 1. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) will consider forging an alliance with the Congress if the latter declares its unambiguous support for separate Telangana and accepts the "package" suggested by the TRS on seat sharing for the coming elections.

Replying to queries from newsmen at a press conference here on Sunday, the TRS president, K. Chandrashekhara Rao, said "the ball is in the court of the Congress, we will consider an alliance if they come out clearly favouring a separate Telangana." "We also made it clear to them earlier that talks could be held if our package is acceptable to them," he added.

Asked about the TDP's charge that the TRS is trying to blackmail the Congress, he lambasted the Telugu Desam Party and accused it of trying to split the Congress.

Mr. Rao went hammer and tongs against the Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary, B. V. Raghavulu, for his statement that the CPI (M) would not have any understanding with the TRS. Taking serious exception to it, he said that the TRS had never proposed any alliance with the CPI (M) nor would ever think of having one. Urging Mr. Raghavulu to stop making such comments, he accused the CPI (M) of working to serve the interests of one section and acting contrary to the Marxist ideology, which enunciated that a solution for any problem should not be viewed in narrow, dogmatic terms.

He said that while 75 per cent of "full time" workers in CPI (M) were from Telangana, the leaders were from Coastal Andhra. "Have they ever given the post of State Secretary to a person from Telangana," he asked. He said the CPI (M) was "alive" because of Telangana as both its former MLAs in the dissolved house were from that region. Similarly, during the panchayat elections, the CPI(M) had contested 88 ZPTC seats in Telangana and won 15 of them. "It got 3.5 per cent of votes in Telangana and 0.62 per cent in Andhra." He appealed to the CPI (M) cadres to question their leadership on why it was "blindly opposing" separate statehood for Telangana.

Replying to a question, he said that his party was willing to work with any party which espoused the cause of Telangana.

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