The Hindu : Front Page : BJP supports separate Telangana

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

BJP supports separate Telangana

Special Correspondent

Party's national meet accuses the UPA of letting down the people of the region

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday said it had always supported the urge of the people of Telangana to have a separate State, and charged that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance had let down the people of the region.

The party stand on Telangana was articulated in a paragraph of the resolution adopted at the end of its two-day session here. It read: "The UPA has let down Telangana on the promise of creation of a separate State and the people are getting increasingly restless with the betrayal. The BJP has always supported the urge of people to have a separate Telangana State." Senior party leader and former Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said this was the first time that the party at the national level had endorsed the State unit's stand on Telangana. He said the BJP would launch an agitation in support of Telangana.

``People of the region are not clamouring for development but constitutional power and their sentiments must be respected," Mr. Dattatreya told correspondents at a press conference.

He said since 1997 when the State unit adopted a resolution, the BJP had supported Telangana but could not pursue it when the National Democratic Alliance was in power as it was not on the national agenda of governance.

The BJP leader criticised the Telugu Desam Party for taking a strong position against Telangana, and challenged party leader N. Chandrababu Naidu for a public debate on the viability of smaller states. He said the Congress too was speaking in different voices, and said it was guilty of letting down the people of the region. Mr. Dattatreya said there was no need for the party to respond to the Pranab Mukherjee Committee since it did not enjoy any statutory powers.

He said the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, whose representative was on the committee, too, had not submitted the party stand. "What right has the Mukherjee Committee to ask the BJP to give in writing its stand on Telangana?" he asked. As for the BJP, he asserted, the party would support the Bill to create a separate Telangana.

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