Date:25/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/25/stories/2006082511110400.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

BJP to go it alone on Telangana

Special Correspondent

`Chintan baithak' to chalk out long-term struggle, say party leaders

Party to expose Congress tricks on the issue
Charges Sonia Gandhi with lacking political will

Ridicules consensus talk, pooh-poohs YSR's claim

HYDERABAD: The BJP will hold a `chintan baithak' soon to chalk out a long-term struggle for achieving separate Telangana.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, party leaders — Bandaru Dattatreya, Ch. Vidyasagar Rao and K. Laxman — said their party would not join other parties in the struggle and that it would be a BJP affair totally. "We will drag the Congress to the streets and expose its deception on Telangana," they said.

Ball in TRS' court

Asked about the party's earlier stand of joining hands with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi if it pulled out of the UPA Government, the leaders said: "Let the TRS spell out its stand. We will wait and watch." They wanted the TRS leader to explain why he and his party remained in the Cabinet for two-and-a-half years.

`Opportunity lost'

They criticised the TRS leadership for pinning hopes on Congress president Sonia Gandhi and alleged that "she does not have the political will to grant separate Telangana." They said the Congress had "lost a good opportunity to grant Telangana peacefully and constitutionally." Ridiculing the talk of consensus, they said the TDP and the Left parties were "irrelevant" at the national level.

The leaders contested the claim of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Telangana development in the last two and a half years, describing it as "jugglery" of figures.