HYDERABAD: A day after the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) pulled out of the Union Cabinet and the UPA, its MLAs stalled the proceedings in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday in support of their demand for separate Telangana State.

Their noisy demonstration forced Speaker K.R. Suresh Reddy to adjourn the House for the day without transacting any business. Led by T. Harish Rao, the TRS members staged a protest sit-in in the House for over three hours and accomplished their declared task of stalling the proceedings.

Pandemonium prevailed in the House as the agitated members holding placards called upon their Telugu Desam and Congress counterparts from Telangana to join the struggle or be branded `traitors.' The placards carried slogans like "Congress is the first villain of Telangana" and "You want ministership or motherland.

Some of the agitating members approached veteran leader M. Satyanarayana Rao and other Congress MLAs from Telangana asking them to clarify their stand on statehood.

Not stopping at that, they rushed to the well raising slogans exhorting the sympathisers to join hands for achieving a separate State. They continued their sit-in despite the adjournment of the proceedings.

Solidarity

Interestingly, three TRS rebels-- B. Shara Rani, T. Jayaprakash Reddy and Dugyala Srinivas-- refused to join the protest while another MLA M. Satyanarayana Reddy stood up and expressed his solidarity with the colleagues.

As soon as the House assembled, TRS members stalled the proceedings and ignored the Speaker's request to them to come in a different form to discuss the issue. Members' protest forced him to adjourn the House twice. When it resumed after third adjournment, Mr. Reddy had no option but to adjourn the proceedings for the day.

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