TJAC regrets lack of response from Sonia, PM

• Kodandram thanks national leaders for their support
• Chalo Assembly next to pressurise govt

Venkat Parsa New Delhi : TJAC leaders who concluded the two-day Chalo Sansad in Delhi on Tuesday regretted lack of response from Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. According to Prof. Kodandram, TJAC president, they expected the Congress leadership to reach out to them and discuss the issue of Telangana. But they regretted that there was no such gesture from the Congress, while leaders of all other political parties participated in the dharna and pledged support to the movement for a separate state of Telangana.

A day after the grand conclusion of the two-day Chalo Sansad programme in the capital, Kodandaram thanked the national leaders for their support to the cause of Telangana. He declared that the next level of protest programme was the Chalo Assembly in Hyderabad. The Chalo Assembly programme would be organised during the next Andhra Pradesh Assembly Session. Failure of the Centre to deliver on its commitment on Telangana had compelled the TJAC to intensify the struggle, he said.

Addressing media persons, Kodandaram said the exact date of the Chalo Assembly programme would be finalised only after the exact dates of the Assembly Session were announced. The entire effort would be to bring pressure on the government to take an early decision on Telangana. If the Congress failed to take a decision on Telangana, then the TJAC would discuss how to further intensify the struggle for Telangana. Efforts would also be made to enlist the support of the national political parties and the intelligentsia, which supported the Chalo Sansad programme to similarly support the Chalo Assembly programme, he said.

Besides Telangana, he said, the TJAC would also focus on the Bayyaram mines issue. "It is an equally important issue that having agreed to set up steel plant in Telangana, the government still wants to go ahead with allocating iron ore from Bayyaram to the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant."

Kodandaram ruled out the TJAC turning into a political party, insisting that there was no political vacuum in Telangana. The TRS and the BJP were capable of representing the region, he said. When told that both parties wanted to go it alone in the next simultaneous Assembly and parliament elections in 2014, he said, "We will cross the bridge, when we reach it." He refused to be drawn into a discussion on the issue, saying right now his entire attention is focused on maintaining unity in the TJAC, which is a platform for the struggle for Telangana.

There was no conflict with the TRS and BJP, which were political parties, fighting for the cause of Telangana, he said. "Movement and political pursuit are two sides of the same coin and there is absolutely no conflict," he asserted. A His primary responsibility now is to maintain unity in TJAC, which is a platform for the political parties, NGOs and other organisations. Kodandaram claimed that the Centre was misusing the Intelligence agencies to crush the Telangana movement.

Asked for his comment on Telangana Congress MPs' claim that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy was playing a double role on Telangana in the state and Centre, he said what he had been saying all along had now been confirmed by the Telangana Congress MPs, he said. Srinivas Goud said after the Chalo Sansad programme, when the TNGOs staged a dharna and later he managed to go into 10, Janpath, Congress President Sonia Gandhi's residence in the Capital, he was given the impression that he would be called later to meet Sonia Gandhi to raise the issue of Telangana. But so far, no call came from 10, Janpath, he said.