TRS calls for bandh on Thursday

‘NO’ TO NEW PLAN: TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who has made clear his party’s opposition to the idea of a Rayala-Telangana State, holds up a note submitted by the TRS to the Group of Ministers, at a press meet in Hyderabad on Tuesday. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K. Chandrasekhar Rao has called a bandh in Telangana for December 5 and rallies and demonstrations for December 4 to oppose the reported move to create ‘Rayala-Telangana.’

Senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu has termed the move a ploy for the government to avoid tabling the Telangana Bill in the Parliament.

At a press conference, Mr. Naidu wondered whether Rayala-Telangana was being mooted to please All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen leader Asaddudin Owaisi, a Congress ally, who had proposed it. Observing that everything had become a “tamasha” for the Congress, he wanted the party to convince its own leaders first of the need for the plan.

He said the Congress had not put forth the proposal before the BJP so far and his party would not change its stand favouring Telangana with 10 districts.

Mr. Rao said the TRS would not accept anything short of Telangana with 10 districts and Hyderabad as capital. “If Rayala-Telangana is formed, all illegal irrigation projects in Rayalaseema will be legitimised,” he said.