HYDERABAD: Telangana Congress leaders are restive over the delay in formation of Telangana state.The Telangana Congress Steering Committee has given more or less an ultimatum to the party high command either to deliver Telangana before the end of this month or face the music.Though it did not spell out what it would do after September if no announcement comes on formation of T state at its meeting on Saturday, sources said the options that the leaders were looking at included resignation of MLAs en masse.But there is no consensus on the issue since many legislators are against resigning afresh since the speaker may not accept them.They are also examining other options like stalling Assembly proceedings or boycotting the session to bring pressure on the Centre.They did not discuss any proposal to go on indefinite hunger strike.After the meeting, Steering Committee chairman K Keshava Rao said: “We have several items in our bag.We will take them out one after the other at an appropriate time.” The meeting was attended by three ministers - B Saraiah, K Jana Reddy and Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, eight MPs, including chairman K Keshava Rao and senior leader Gutta Sukhender Reddy, and 11 MLAs.The steering committee said it was not in a mood to accept the invitation for any more rounds of confabulations with either AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad or any other leader.They want the party leadership to end the process of consultations after the proposed talks with Andhra leaders on September 12.The steering committee examined the proposal of Seemandhra leaders for making Hyderabad the joint capital and said it might allow it for a short span of time but not on a permanent basis.“We want sometime given to our Andhra brethren to build their own capital.In fact, even Andhras would not like their capital situated in a different state for long,” MP Manda Jagannadham said.The steering committee made an honest introspection of the grey areas in their unity and tried to plug them as early as possible lest it might send wrong signals to the people that they were not really committed to the cause and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) might take advantage of it.To set the house in order, the steering committee decided to redouble its efforts and make the Telangana ministers fall in line.Said the most vocal of the Congress MLAs T Rajaiah:“We will target the recalcitrant ministers and make them resign.All of us (MLAs) will soon meet and decide on the ways to bring pressure on them.” In the same breath, Keshava Rao said: “Those who are attending duties and those who are not heeding our advice would be treated by the people as betrayers of Telangana.“If D Sridhar Babu, DK Aruna and P Sudarshan Reddy are attending duties, we will tell them not to do so.If they do not care and if they do not want Telangana, it is up to them.The people will decide their future,” Keshava Rao said.The reason why the steering committee was angry with the ministers attending duties is that in the morning itself, the three ministers met steering committee’s other chairman K Jana Reddy and requested him not to create problems to the state government.The three ministers later left Jana Reddy’s residence, giving a miss to the steering committee meeting.Another issue that dominated the proceedings was the upcoming byelection to Banswada Assembly seat where the leaders felt that the Congress should leave it uncontested.But they are not sure how the party high command would react to it.“We have decided to appeal to the high command not to field any candidate since it would further antagonise the people.The appeal was being made to tell the T people that the leaders were not interested in contesting the election,” Jagannadham said
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