The Congress legislators from Khammam will soon meet AICC president, Sonia Gandhi to request her that the Polavaram submergence areas in Bhadrachalam revenue division should not be merged with Seemandhra region.
The legislators held a meeting in the chambers of Panchayat Raj Minister K. Jana Reddy here on Monday and resolved to meet party high command and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh against the merger of Bhadrachalam revenue division.
They said that the amendment in the Telangana Bill for transferring submergence villages to Seemandhra for facilitating Polavaram project would displace 2.5 lakh tribals in 271 villages. Later speaking to media persons, Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy alleged that the Seemandhra Congress leaders sought submergence areas to gain access to mining of iron and bauxite ores in the area. TRS president K.Chandrasekhara Rao who promised to create ‘Telangana with social justice’ should bring pressure on the Centre to drop the decision to transfer these tribal villages to Seemandhra. He suggested that instead of displacing lakhs of tribals and uprooting them from their native land and destroying their culture, the Government should consider changing the design of Polavaram project. The Centre accorded national project status to Polavaram project to benefit Seemandhra post bifurcation.
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Earlier in the day, the Telangana Congress legislators staged a protest at the Mahatma Gandhi and Ambedkar statues in the Assembly premises against merger of Bhadrachalam revenue division in Seemandhra.