All set for Congress Telangana Sadhana Sabha

Hyderabad, June 30: The venue and agenda are same. But it will be a different set of leaders who will demand formation of Telangana State at the Nizam College Grounds on Sunday.

Almost a month after the TRS and BJP held the public meetings at the same venue, the Congress leaders from Telangana region will be displaying their strength on the statehood issue at Telangana Sadhana Sabha. This is probably for the first time that the ministers, MLAs, MLCs and other leaders of Congress party have joined hands over Telangana. Initially, they held a series of meetings under the chairmanship of Panchayat Raj Minister K Jana Reddy and Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha.

The meetings were followed by visit of some prominent leaders to the national capital. A few reports of constitution of a powerful Telangana Regional Council or a special economic package for the region were floated in media to check how the possible reactions. Some leaders including former PCC President D Srinivas, who were silent for the last few years, were widely quoted by the media on Telangana issue.

After the initial build-up, the Telangana Congress leaders then decided to hold a public meeting. The leaders also sought the support of different Joint Action Committees including the Telangana Political JAC led by Prof M Kodandaram. Huge crowd is being mobilised for the meeting from all districts of the region.

Analysts feel that the meeting is just a prelude to a major announcement on the Telangana issue by the Centre. Instead of allowing the TRS, which gained strength with the joining of two sitting MPs – G Vivek and M Jagannatham – and former PCC chief K Keshav Rao, to take credit for any development on the statehood issue, the Congress wants its own leaders to emerge heroes of Telangana.

A similar strategy was adopted when TRS cheif K Chandrasekhar Rao and Medak MP Vijayshanti raised the Telangana issue in Parliament. In an apparently planned move, the T-Congress MPs stalled the Lok Sabha proceedings by defying the party High Command. While the MPs got suspended from the House for a brief period and the party did not take any disciplinary action against them, they were given a heroic welcome when they returned Hyderabad.

The Sunday’s meeting too is said to be aimed at down-sizing the TRS in the region.

The meeting enjoying the full support from the Congress High Command is being gauged from the fact that some leaders like Mohammad Ali Shabbir and Damodar Rajanarasimha, who were not too active on the statehood issue, are directly supervising its arrangements.  However, some senior leaders have denied the allegation that the meeting was staged-managed by the High Command. They said that Congress party was always serious about Telangana and only it can give statehood for the region.