Reports leaked by the Congress high command that it is contemplating a financial package for Telangana have not gone down well with party leaders from the region.
Almost all ministers, MPs and MLAs from Telangana rejected the yet-to-be announced package. Interestingly, even Danam Nagender and M Mukesh Goud, the Hyderabad brothers whose opposition to the very idea of a Telangana State with Hyderabad as its integral part is well-known, joined their colleagues in disapproving the package proposal on Wednesday.
Ministers D Sridhar Babu, DK Aruna, V Sunitha Lakshma Reddy, Ponnala Lakshmaiah and B Saraiah, and MP Ponnam Prabhakar followed suit and said nothing short of a Telangana State was acceptable. Panchayat Raj Minister K Jana Reddy, under whose leadership the T Congress flock held a broad-based meeting on Tuesday, categorically rejected the idea.
Deputy Chief Minister C Damodara Rajanarasimha flew to Delhi to convey to the party high command the strong objections of T Congress leaders to the proposed financial package. He is expected to meet party president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday on their behalf. He is likely to call on newly-appointed AICC State affairs incharge Digvijaya Singh. Jana Reddy is also planning to join him in Delhi on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the Congress leaders from Telangana had a heated debate on the party high command’s plans. Danam Nagender set the tone for the rest with his statehood demand. His colleague Mukesh Goud demanded an immediate solution to the T issue “as dragging it further will not be good for the State.”
In the meanwhile, strongly objecting to the allegation of MLA K Lakshma Reddy, a member of Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy’s camp, that he was bargaining with the AICC leadership for the “top job” in the government, Jana Reddy said, “I am not the kind of man who bargains for positions of power over the statehood issue.”
Jana Reddy made it clear he was ready to quit his ministerial post for the sake of a separate state.
“If statehood is accorded to Telangana, I will work for the party till my last breath,” he claimed. Observing that the demand for a Telangana State was over 60 years old, Ponnala said according statehood to the region was the only solution.
Minister Saraiah went one step further and cautioned his party leadership against announcing a financial package. On the other hand, ministers and Congress leaders from Seemandhra welcomed the proposal. Ministers Sake Sailajanath and TG Venkatesh told media that a meeting of Seemandhra Congress leaders would be held soon to chalk out their future course of action.
However, minister N Raghuveera Reddy said though he was for a United State, he would abide by the decision of his party high command. Another minister from Seemandhra, Dokka Manikya Varaprasada Rao, said he would follow his party high command’s decision on the issue.
Source: Indian Express