Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

TRS not a big player, says APCC chief

By Our Staff Reporter

BHIMAVARAM NOV. 7. The APCC president, D. Srinivas, on Friday said the Telangana Rastra Samithi (TRS) was not a political force to reckon with.

"I don't want to attach any political significance to the TRS,'' the PCC chief said at a media briefing here when asked to comment on the possibility of the Congress having a truck with the TRS in the coming elections. The TRS was thriving on `a single point agenda' -- separate statehood for Telangana -- and the Congress did not consider it a like-minded party, Mr. Srinivas said. The TRS could not form the Government on its own, he added.

However, Mr. Srinivas said the Congress was in favour of forging an alliance with `like-minded' parties like the Communist parties to take on the TDP-BJP combine in the State.

The Congress leader was highly critical of the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, for `keeping the Opposition guessing' on the timing of the elections. Although it was the prerogative of the ruling party to dissolve the House and go for the polls as per its convenience, the PCC chief said Mr Naidu was in a state of `confusion and indecisiveness' on the question of snap polls.

Mr. Srinivas said the `non-performance' of the TDP regime on `all frontss' would be the focus of the election campaign of the Congress. Charging that the TDP Government was on a spree of laying foundation-stones for various developmental works, he said it was an "election stunt'' to woo the electorate.

Expressing happiness over the good response to the ongoing Prajahita progamme, he said: "I got a pat from my leader, Sonia Gandhi.''

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