One of the first moves by Congress when it assumes power in Telangana, the 29th State of the Indian Republic, would be appointment of district re-organisation committees to extensively tour the new State and recommend the formation of 20 districts from the 10 now.
These and 11 other points were outlined by chairman of the SC/ST Cell of the All India Congress Committee, Koppula Raju as the 12-point agenda of the Congress government during the first 100 days of its governance. He was addressing a Meet the Press programme organised by the Telangana Union of Working Journalists, in the presence of Union Minister of State for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh here on Monday.
Fielding questions, the Union Minister said there were five undisputable points for which people should cast their ballot for Congress. They were political stability that only the Congress could provide, social justice, communal harmony, peaceful bifurcation and all-round development, he explained.
Asked about Bharatiya Janata Party saying that only its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi could be credited for Telangana, the Union Minister brushed it aside. As for Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), he said it had zero role in the preparation of the Bill, apart from the fact that they anyway didn’t participate in the discussions in Parliament. “Yes, the TRS did agitate for a separate State but it was the Congress which actually made it possible, brought about a political consensus,” he declared.
When a scribe referred to how 369 people were killed in police firing on a single day in the year 1969, he responded saying that any agitation had to be tackled democratically and such instances were unavoidable and condemnable. Regardless of who was in power at that time, it is regrettable, he added.
Asked if the Congress would lift the ban on Maoists, the Union Minister explained how Maoism was best tackled only with development and political activity. “I have visited Saranda in Jharkhand, the hotbed of naxalism 14 times in the past three years and initiated developmental activities. The awareness among people now is clear for people to see, the way a whopping 75 per cent of people turned up at the poll booths to cast their vote,” he said.
