Just a day after sounding off that they would even resign for the Telangana cause, deputy chief minister Damodara Rajanarasimha and panchayat raj minister K Jana Reddy seem to have made a U-turn.
According to sources, both the leaders are of the opinion that resignations will not solve the problem and have decided to step up pressure on the Congress high command, by remaining in the cabinet, to accord statehood to the region.
Despite the stronglyworded warning given by the TJAC that they would henceforth target the ministers, the ministers from the region are unable to formulate an action plan on how to exert pressure on the AICC top brass.
Ego problems and differences of opinion between the ministers and MPs are said to be impeding the progress on this score.
Rajanarasimha hosted a lunch for his cabinet colleagues and MPs from Telangana region at Ministers' Quarters here on Monday and later held a meeting with them to formulate an action plan to persuade the Congress high command.
Though the deputy chief minister had invited all the Telangana ministers and MPs to the lunch, only three ministers, K Jana Reddy, G Prasad Kumar and Baswaraj Saraiah turned up.
Interestingly, soon after the lunch began, Saraiah left for the Secretariat without taking part in the meeting.
Eight MPs Ponnam Prabhakar, Gutta Sukhender Reddy, Manda Jagannadham, Balaram Naik, Siricilla Rajaiah, Suresh Shetkar and Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy and senior leader K Kesava Rao, and MLCs K Yadav Reddy and Bhanu Prasad partook of the lunch and attended the meeting which was held later.
It is learnt that all the participants felt that though they had prevailed upon chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy to accord permission for the march, TJAC leaders targeted the Congress in their speeches wihtout any gratitude.
Differences have cropped up between the ministers and MPs over the issue.
Ministers felt that MPs were putting the entire blame on them and were making them targets for the TJAC.
On the other hand, MPs made it clear that if ministers quit their posts, it would be easy to convince the high command to concede the Telangana demand.
Emerging from the meeting, Jagannadham and Sukhender Reddy said: "Since the TJAC is targeting the Congress, we have decided to undertake a visit to Delhi in a delegation headed by Damodar Rajanarasimha and Jana Reddy and persuade the Congress high command to deliver Telangana. We requested them to formulate a course of action on how to persuade the high command."
They said the ministers and the MPs would meet again to finalise the date for their Delhi visit.
Interestingly, contrary to the claims of the MPs, a senior minister who took part in the meeting said that the ministers had placed the responsibility of formulating an action plan on the shoulders of the MPs.
Comments
0 comment