The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : AICC forces radical shift in TRCCC agenda

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Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

AICC forces radical shift in TRCCC agenda

Special Correspondent

Statehood issue put on the back burner; focus shifts to developmental aspects of the region

PARADIGM SHIFT: G. Chinna Reddy, chairman, Telangana Regional Coordination Committee, honouring the APCC president, K. Keshava Rao, at a meeting in Hyderabad on Monday. At left are M. Kodanda Reddy and Palvai Govardhan Reddy.

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Regional Congress Coordination Committee (TRCCC) has decided to drop the issue of statehood for the region, "leaving the matter in the safe hands of Sonia Gandhi" and concentrate only on developmental aspects of the region.

This was stated by the APCC president, K. Keshava Rao, who chaired a meeting of the TRCCC, here on Monday.

The TRCCC, which was inactive for nearly a year after the Congress came to power, was resurrected at the APCC headquarters with a meeting, only to bury its statehood agenda.

Broad hint

Significantly, the AICC, at its Manifesto Implementation Committee meeting on Sunday, had only emphasised on the development of Telangana region and asked the Government to lay greater emphasis on it and skirted any discussion on the issue of statehood. This evidently was a hint for the TRCCC.

"Henceforth, we will not discuss or raise the Telangana issue and confine ourselves to the developmental agenda. We are happy with the Government's commitment to the cause of Telangana and reaffirm our resolve to leave the issue to Ms. Sonia Gandhi.

We also urge upon TRS leaders not to give vent to their feelings in public to avoid unwarranted confusion and differences", Dr. Keshava Rao said.

The TRCC "regretted" that the Government had given scope for the refrain that it had not seriously represented its case before the Krishna Waters Tribunal recently and sought a methodical presentation of the case by its advocates in future.

Maharashtra projects

It hailed that stand of the Chief Minister in opposing projects being built by Maharashtra across the Godavari as these would hamper the flows into Sriramsagar Project and Nizamsagar.

A study team of the TRCCC would visit the Babli project site in Maharashtra, he said. Laying emphasis on completion of mega projects such as like Ichampalli, it felt priority must be given to completion of Telangana projects.

Also, to ensure higher yields to farmers in Telangana and for judicious utilisation of available water resources, drip irrigation must be given 90 per cent subsidy, he said.

GO 610 implementation

Dr. Keshava Rao said the Government was fully committed to the implementation of GO 610 urged it to take "early and concrete" steps to complete the process keeping in view the recommendation of the House Committee and the Girglani Commission.

Different voices within the party in this regard were only individual opinions and not that of the party.

P. Janardhan Reddy and M. Mukesh, both city MLAs, raised the issue of transport travails in the city and sought speedier completion of any "suitable metro rail project" to ease the congestion, he said.

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