By IANS
Hyderabad : The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) Wednesday said its MPs and legislators would resign if the Congress-led UPA government at the centre did not make an announcement on the formation of a separate Telangana state by March 6.
TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao told a news conference that if the government failed to initiate the process for separate statehood to Telangana region by March 6, all TRS members of parliament and the state legislature would quit office.
“If this does not happen we will go to the people’s court and expose how the Congress party is cheating the people of Telangana,” he said.
TRS has four members in Lok Sabha, 16 members in the state assembly and three in the legislative council.
KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, demanded that the Pranab Mukherjee-led ministerial committee on Telangana submit its report immediately.
He alleged that the Congress party had not made its stand clear on the issue before the committee while all other parties had spelt out their stand supporting the demand for a separate state.
According to him, the ambiguous stand of the Congress was responsible for the delay in the committee submitting its report.
The TRS chief described as a betrayal to the people the reported decision of the Congress party to constitute a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) to look into the demand for smaller states, including Telangana.
TRS, which KCR launched after quitting the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 2000, had fought the 2004 elections in alliance with the Congress party. It won five Lok Sabha seats and 26 assembly seats and joined Congress-led coalition governments both at the centre and in the state.
KCR, who along with his then deputy A. Narendra served as union ministers, had promised to achieve separate Telangana within a year. On several occasions, he set deadlines before the UPA but failed to get any concrete assurance.
Irked over the delay, TRS first pulled out of coalition in the state in 2005 and quit the central cabinet in 2006.
The revolt by 10 legislators against KCR and the human smuggling scandal involving some of its leaders dealt a blow to the party. Last year, Narendra was expelled from the party for his alleged involvement in the scandal.
However, the recent statement by the Congress about the second SRC infused new life into the TRS and its movement for a separate state.
The demand for separate statehood to Telangana, which comprises 10 districts including Hyderabad, is more than four decades old. The region, which was part of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, was merged with Andhra State to form a united state for Telugu-speaking people in 1956.
The region witnessed a violent agitation for a mseparate state in 1969. More than 300 people were killed in the violence. The movement was revived by TRS in 2000.
The region accounts for 42 percent of the state’s area and 40 percent of the state’s 77 million population.