politics News AP : No change in stand on Telangana:YSR

HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy has said that he will abide by the party’s stand on Telangana statehood issue. Dr. Reddy reiterated his remarks that there was no change in his stand on the issue and that was made very clear through a statement in the Assembly earlier this year. “The Congress had never said that it was opposed to Telangana,” he said at a ‘Meet the Press’ programme organised by the AP Union of Working Journalists here on Thursday. “There is no second opinion about Telangana. What I had said was while carving out a new State, the issues concerning the other regions should also be studied,” he added. The Chief Minister, during the second phase election campaign, had expressed serious reservations on creation of Telangana stating that if a separate State was created under the Grand Alliance regime, the people of Andhra and Rayalaseema would be forced to obtain visas to enter Hyderabad. Dr. Reddy to persistent queries whether the 2009 election results had sealed the fate of statehood said that sentiment was still there. Asked further if the verdict has given a solution to the issue, Dr.Reddy pointed out that the elections were not fought on this one issue. Nevertheless, he said people had chosen the Congress party in the region where it won 50 Assembly and 12 Lok Sabha seats. To a question whether Telangana was an issue or created by the leaders, he observed that he had repeatedly asked people whether Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) would have been formed if K. Chandrasekhar Rao was inducted into the Cabinet by then Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in 1999. To another question, Dr. Reddy said the performance of the Congress party in the region only showed that there was a leadership crisis in the TRS. When queried whether his group would continue to dominate the political scene in the party, Dr. Reddy shot back saying that there was only one group which was the Sonia and Congress group. He promised to reward the services of the party cadres. He also clarified that there was no need for a Deputy Chief Minister from the Telangana region. Local issues to blame Asked about the debacle of several Ministers, he said local issues had contributed to their defeat. On whether the government was contemplating seeking ‘national project’ status for Pranahita-Chevella and Polavaram projects, he said work on that line was already on.