Hyderabad: Softening their stand,
Telangana Congress leaders on Tuesday said they will go to Delhi
either on July 21 or 22 to hold talks with senior party leader
Ghulam Nabi Azad on the contentious separate statehood issue.
"In view of the Centre's invitation, we plan to go to
Delhi on July 21 or 22," MP Gutta Sukhender Reddy told
reporters here after a meeting of Telangana Congress leaders.
Taking exception to Azad's remarks that consensus and
assembly resolution are necessary for the formation of
separate state and that the Telangana issue should start from
the scratch, Congress leaders from the region yesterday
refused to accept his invitation to come to Delhi until he
withdrew his comments.
"We hope he (Azad) would clarify his remarks," Reddy
said.
Observing that they are not averse to talks, he,
however, said the proposed talks should eventually pave way
for formation of separate state.
Azad, in-charge of Congress affairs in Andhra Pradesh,
yesterday said that consultations will be held with party
leaders from coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana in a
bid to resolve the vexed statehood issue.
He told a delegation of non-Telangana Congress leaders
to select a few representatives from the coastal Andhra and
Rayalaseema regions and send them for the consultation
process.
Another Telangana Congress MP K Rajagopal Reddy hoped
that the consultation process proposed to be initiated by the
Centre would lead to the formation of a separate Telangana.
"We believe the consultation mechanism would take the
opinions of leaders from other regions, listen to their
objections to separate Telangana. We will place our justified
demand for separate state before the mechanism. We hope the
Centre and high command would give separate Telangana. So, we
are not against talks," he said.
The Telangana Congress leaders have called upon party
cadres to observe 'satyagraha' tomorrow at all mandal
headquarters across the region and a 'Congress flag festival'
on July 26.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, July 19, 2011, 20:02