The Hindu : Front Page : TRS threatens to quit UPA

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Friday, Sep 02, 2005

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TRS threatens to quit UPA

Special Correspondent

KCR accuses YSR of adopting an `anti-Telangana attitude'

NEW DELHI: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti has once again raised the pitch against the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, and said it is considering the attitude of the latter and the party may think of quitting the United Progressive Alliance.

Charging that the Chief Minister was adopting an `anti-Telangana attitude', and criticising his handling of the naxalite issue, the TRS president, K.Chandrasekhar Rao, said: "That is why we feel that the time has come for us either to form Telangana or launch an agitation by leaving the UPA."

The latest provocation for the TRS was the speech of Dr. Reddy at the National Integration Council here on Wednesday in which he spoke against the creation of smaller states. Earlier this year, the TRS pulled out of the Andhra Pradesh Government and subsequently, the Congress central leadership intervened and arranged a meeting of the TRS chief with Dr. Reddy.

Mr. Rao led a delegation of party MPs and MLAs to meet the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president, Sonia Gandhi and Home Minister Shivraj Patil here on Thursday. Mr. Rao also met the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar separately.

Memo Submitted

In a memorandum submitted to these leaders, the TRS urged them to instruct the State Government to lift the ban imposed on the Maoist group of naxalites and other organisations, revive the peace talks and give up the `pernicious practice of fake encounters and combing operations'. "The State Government should be made to further realise that its request for more and more funds should be for development and not for more and more ammunition for suppressing democratic urges of the people of Telangana," the memorandum said.

Asked whether he was disappointed that no significant progress was made towards the formation of Telangana, he said that hope and despair was not the issue and the party would have to take a diplomatic decision.

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