Zee Media Bureau
Hyderabad: Even as the Congress managed to push through a law in the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha making Telangana the 29th state of India, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday ruled out any possibility of merger with the grand old party ahead of the upcoming General Elections.
Addressing party members here, Chandrasekhar Rao said, “No merger with Congress under any circumstance.”
In today`s meeting a committee of senior leaders were appointed to look into alliances, if approached by any party.
Rao was critical of the attitude of the Congress and the Centre saying even before the ink on the President`s assent to the AP Reorganisation Bill had dried, the UPA government had come out with an Ordinance giving a special category status to the residuary state while denying it to the new state of Telangana.
This, he said, was an undemocratic move which would be challenged in the Supreme Court. He also said that the TRS had cooperated in the passage of the bill because it did not want to be seen as an obstacle in the creation of the new state.
Asked by the media about his statement last year that TRS would merge with the Congress, Rao said he had given such an assurance only if Telangana was formed unconditionally. But it had come with so many conditions, he told them.
Rao also opposed making Hyderabad the joint capital saying "Hyderabad is our (Telangana`s) proud capital and our hereditary property".
However, some senior leaders of TRS who had a meeting with Rao today said that talks were on between both the parties on whether there should be an alliance and added that this option will be probed further.
The development came a week after the TRS president met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the national capital and Digvijay Singh, party`s in-charge of Andhra Pradesh, about a possible merger or alliance between the two.
When, Rao, 60, who had initiated and led the Telangana campaign, met Sonia Gandhi and thanked her for ensuring the passage of the bill in Parliament, speculations were rife that the TRS would either merge with the Congress or at least form an alliance with the party.
Meanwhile, sources said that a sizeable section of the cadre of the TRS are of the view that the party should enter an alliance with the Congress and not merge with it. They even want K Chandrashekhar Rao to be at the helm of the affairs and lead the development of the state of Telangana.
As per reports, Congress had refused to project Rao as the chief minister of Telangana due to which the party members decided to reject the proposal of merger. Senior leaders close to Rao are also of the view that if TRS maintain its own identity it will be fruitful for the party in the elections rather than loosing it`s identity by merging with the Congress party.
