The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leadership appears to be pushing the Congress leadership into dilemma whether it should go for merger or prefer electoral alliance by procrastinating consultations as much as it can.
The TRS core group camping in Delhi has dropped enough hints to key Congress leaders that the political vacuum created by merger would only help the TDP and the BJP occupy it. “We are asking them whether the merger will really help the Congress by explaining how it could benefit by going for an alliance with us,” a key leader of the TRS told The Hindu over phone from Delhi.
Official spokesperson of TRS Jagadeeshwar Reddy went a step further when he told newspersons in Delhi on Saturday that there was no chance of either merger or alliance talks as of now. Such issues would come up only during the elections and decisions were taken only then, he maintained.
He spoke to reporters after several Telugu television channels started flashing news-scrolls that TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao had an appointment with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in the afternoon. He stated that they had not sought an appointment with the Congress leader yet.
‘Need to discuss issue extensively’“Merger issue is a big process and it can’t be decided in a hurry. We want to discuss it extensively in the party before coming to any conclusion. We are not sure whether there will be merger at all,” sources in the TRS maintained.
It was a decision that would impact a large number of people in the party. Ultimately, a decision which would be helpful for Telangana and the TRS would be taken, party MLA K.T. Rama Rao said.
The core group of TRS led by Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao was still camping in Delhi to oversee the process of the A.P. Reorganisation Bill passed by the Rajya Sabhat ending in gazette notification. “From the Rajya Sabha Secretariat it would go to the Law Ministry and later to the Home Ministry before being sent to the President for his assent,” party leader B. Vinod Kumar said.
