Date:24/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/24/stories/2008052458210300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

‘50 p.c. quota for BCs if Telangana is formed’

Correspondent

MAHABUBNAGAR: TRS president K. Chandrasekhara Rao announced on Friday amid cheers that 50 per cent of the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats would be reserved for backward classes in Telangana, if a separate State was formed.

Addressing an election meeting at Jedcharla, he said that since BCs, SCs, STs and minorities put together constituted a major chunk of the population in Telangana, priority would be given to the communities and their interests protected, if a separate State was formed.

Mr. Rao maintained that the May 29 byelections were being fought between the ‘Andhra hegemony’ and the ‘Telangana pride’.

He claimed that persons at the helm of affairs in New Delhi would get shivers and their chairs would shake, if the TRS candidates were re-elected. The audience cheered whenever ‘KCR’ criticised both the Congress and the Telugu Desam.

Continuing his tirade against Chief Minster Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the TRS chief stated that while over two lakh children in Nalgonda district were suffering with flourosis and over 15 lakh farm labourers were migrating from Mahabubnagar due to non-utilisation of Krishna waters, Dr. Reddy was forcing ‘diversion’ of the water through Pothireddypadu to the Penna basin leaving the Krishna basin dry.

He alleged that the Government was planning to sell away Wakf lands in Ranga Reddy, Hyderabad and Medak districts, worth Rs. 40 lakh crore.