: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao cut short his visit to Delhi and returned to the State capital on Tuesday night due to “non-availability of Union Ministers” whom he intended to meet as part of pursuing for projects and funds for Telangana .
Mr. Rao went on the Delhi visit reluctantly after the scheduled meeting with Prime Minister on categorisation of Scheduled Castes was cancelled at the last moment, although it was informed a day before he left Hyderabad for Delhi. However, he had chalked out plans to meet several Union Ministers once he had decided to go and the CMO had contacted their offices seeking appointments, sources in TRS stated.
“He had plans to meet Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (Home), Nitin Gadkari (Transport, Highways and Shipping), Piyush Goyal (Power) and others to take up the outstanding issues, but they had expressed their inability to meet the Chief Minister stating that they are preoccupied with the ongoing session of Parliament and the campaigning for Uttar Pradesh elections,” a TRS leader in Delhi told The Hindu .
Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao had plans to stay put in Delhi till February 9 to take up several contentious issues with the Union Ministers concerned, particularly in the backdrop of a meeting of ministers from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh convened by Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan recently to thrash out differences on various aspects.
There were some plans for one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the wedding reception of Union Minister Prakash Javadekar’s son on Monday night but sources stated that it also did not materialise. “Except for exchanging pleasantries, what can be discussed on such occasions even if there is an opportunity?” a TRS leader remarked and felt that the official meeting would not have harmed the electoral prospects of BJP in UP in any manner.
“When the Prime Minister could meet a group of farmers from Amaravati (AP) in Parliament by giving them time on an earlier occasion, can’t he spare some time for an all-party delegation led by a Chief Minister on the issue of categorisation of SCs?”, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari observed and said they were miffed as to why the appointment given was cancelled.
The TRS has also registered its disappointment over cancellation of the appointment with the Prime Minister during the discussion of motion of thanks to the President’s address in Lok Sabha on Monday, even as Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya tried to allay misgivings that State BJP was behind it.
