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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Telangana: sharp differences again in Congress

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Sharp differences within the Congress over the prevailing ‘Telangana sentiment’ came to the fore again.

Even as the senior party leaders are gearing up for a meeting with the Congress high command on January 28, another group of elected representatives, including MLAs and MLCs, are up in arms against the seniors for “unnecessarily” dragging Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy into the Telangana row.

Led by Nalgonda MLA K. Venkat Reddy, they have decided to take up with the party leadership the “harm the seniors are causing to the party’s image by publicly voicing their views.” They have decided to meet here on January 23 to discuss the ‘confusion’ created by the statements of senior leaders and explain the same to the party leadership in February first week. “The so-called seniors are raising the Telangana bogey as they had not been given Ministries and other posts,” Mr. Venkata Reddy said. He made light of the resignation threat by the Telangana Regional Development Board Chairman, V. Purushottam Reddy, recalling that the latter had launched a signature campaign in support of the second States Reorganisation Commission.

Another senior Congress leader and APSRTC former chairman Gone Prakash Rao differed with the views of the senior leaders on the prevailing sentiment as the results of the Karimnagar Lok Sabha by-election should not be construed as a “yardstick” for the entire region. Seniors were trying to “blackmail” the party high command for their “selfish ends”, he said, recalling that a majority of them who were voicing their views in public were strong votaries of an integrated State earlier.

Stating that they were not against the formation of a separate State, Mr. Prakash Rao said the elected representatives would present a clear picture on the performance of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti in different elections since 2000 and how the Telugu Desam Party, which was supporting a united State, performed well in the constituencies represented by the Congress leaders, who were now for a separate Telangana.

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