HYDERABAD, India, 5 March 2008 — Nineteen Telangana Rashtra Samithi lawmakers yesterday resigned their seats in Andhra Pradesh legislature in protest over the delay in the creation of a separate Telangana state. Sixteen of them were members of the Legislative Assembly and three belonged to the Legislative Council.
Their resignations came a day after four TRS members of Parliament led by party President K Chandrasekhar Rao resigned from the Lok Sabha.
Making a statement on their resignations, Vijayarama Rao accused the Congress party of deceiving the people of Telangana after promising them a separate Telangana state on the eve of 2004 elections. Congress forged an electoral alliance with TRS in 2004 assembly and parliamentary elections.
Accusing Congress of doing injustice to the backward region over the last four years, Rao said Chief Minister Y.S Rajasekhar Reddy was the “biggest stumbling block” in the way of a separate Telangana state. He said since the people of Telangana were deceived by the Congress leadership, the TRS members had no option but to quit their elected posts to register their protest.
Nayini Narasimha Reddy said that six TRS ministers, including himself, had quit the state Cabinet in 2005 when they found that the chief minister was doing injustice to Telangana and hurting the interests of the region.
He said Congress had a history of betraying the people of Telangana. At least 350 people died in police firings during an earlier Telangana agitation in the 1960s but Congress scuttled the statehood demand by coming out with a six-point formula to resolve the issue.
Reddy said the Congress party would not win a single seat in Telangana in the next election.
