TRS chief claims PM invited him to rejoin government

By IANS

New Delhi : Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president and former union labour minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao Thursday claimed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked his party to rejoin the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA).


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Rao, who met the prime minister in Parliament House earlier in the day with his band of MPs and legislators, told media persons: "I told the prime minister, you give us Telangana and we will be glad to return to the UPA government."

Rao had resigned from the UPA government last year and dissociated from the alliance soon after over indecision on carving a separate state of Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh.

Rao and his MPs, sans his former lieutenant A. Narendra, now suspended from the party for his alleged involvement in human trafficking, met the prime minister and put a five-point charger of demands.

Significantly the demands did not include early formation of Telangana, the longstanding demand of the TRS.

Asked about this, Rao said: "Telangana is our constant first priority demand anyway."

The other demands included settling the controversial issue of stopping Maharashtra government from constructing a dam for its Babhli irrigation project; implementation of the Sachar Committee report on socio-economic condition of Muslims in toto; removal of danger signs from bidi wrappers, which is being enforced by the union health ministry; and treating workers of Singareni colleries in Andhra Pradesh at par with defence and ONGC workers for the hazardous work they do.

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