NEW DELHI: Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) members on Thursday raised in the Lok Sabha the issue of a separate State and recounted the events that led to the resignation of the party representatives from the Union Council of Ministers.

(President Abdul Kalam has since accepted the resignations of K. Chandrasekhar Rao and A. Narendra, according to a Rashtrapati Bhavan communiqué.)

Madhusudan Reddy and Ravinder Naik said the people of the region had been discriminated against for the past five decades and had remained backward.

The Congress had gone back on its promise of a separate Telangana, Mr Reddy said. Its leaders had assured the TRS before the 2004 Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections that once the party returned to power, a separate Telangana would be a reality.

Mr. Reddy said "consensus is not concurrence" since the Congress maintained that there was no consensus on a separate Telangana. Even the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party declared its support by adopting a resolution.

Mr. Naik said Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy as Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, even led a delegation of State party leaders from the Telangana region to New Delhi in support of the demand. Now, the Congress was backtracking. "We thought Sonia Gandhi is a new generation leader and she will do justice. Probably, even she is backtracking," he said.

When Mr. Reddy talked of the poor health of Mr. Rao, who is on a hunger strike, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee appealed to him to withdraw his fast and said the entire House was with him in the appeal.

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