KCR's fiery speech

Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday stole the thunder right under the noses of the Congress Legislators how have launched a 48-hour hunger fast for Telangana at the Indira Park, with a fiery speech.

Armed with a Congress badge and the party’s ‘patta’ (band), KCR’s speech, targeting the ruling party’s In-Charge of Andhra Pradesh Affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and others, left the fasting leaders squirming on the dais.

Addressing the gathering after expressing solidarity to the Legislators taking part in the hunger fast, K Chandrasekhar Rao described the resignation of Congress leaders as `historic’ and told them that their names will be etched in golden letters in the history of Telangana.

“Your sacrifices will not go waste and would be written in the history of Telangana with golden letters. The Telangana Legislators have resigned to fulfil the aspirations of people of the region. By resigning, the Congress leaders had not revolted against the High Command,” KCR said. As if to drive home his point, KCR recalled how the Seemandhra leaders had revolted against the High Command in the aftermath of the announcement on Telangana made by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on December 9, 2009. 

Alleging that Seemandra leaders were working against formation of Telangana state, the Trs chief, adorned in Congress colours, reminded the gathering of the statement of former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at the time of unification of the state. He quoted the former prime minister of assuring the Telangana people that they can carve out separate state if they were not satisfied with integrated Andhra Pradesh.

KCR’s finding fault in the statement of Congress In-Charge of State Affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad that it was necessary for a unanimous resolution to be passed by the state Assembly for the creation of Telangana left the Congress leaders squirming, even though most of them had themselves reacted against the comments.

KCR said that there is no need to pass such a resolution and Centre can take a decision on creation of Telangana without it. He advised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to understand the situation in Telangana instead of heeding to advices of Seemandhra leaders blindly.

The Trs chief also alleged that the Governor, Intelligence Bureau, Director General of Police have not send ‘proper’ reports over the situation prevailing in the Telangana region and hinted that they were also responsible for the mess. He also alleged that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and other ‘vested elements’ are making efforts to foil unity of Telangana leaders and appealed to all leaders from the region to continue their present unity until the Centre takes a favourable decision on Telangana state formation.

He said the self-respect and self governance of Telangana people would only be possible with the formation of separate Telangana state. KCR further added that he had received feelers from Centre that it would make an announcement within two weeks over the formation of state.

Ruling out the possibility of financial packages or Regional Councils for the development of region of solving the problems of the people, the Trs chief said that such earlier packages and Regional Councils formed in the region were confined to papers. “Constitution of India has provided an opportunity to live separately, even to a married couple. But the Centre is not giving us a chance to live separately,” he stated.