The PCC chief, Mr D. Srinivas, on Friday indicated that the Congress will contest in the by-polls to all the 12 Assembly seats vacated by the TRS, BJP and the TD in the Telangana region.
“Being a national party, how can we keep quiet? We cannot miss an election,”’ he said at Gandhi Bhavan.
His statement drew flak from the TRS and Osmania JAC leaders.
Mr T. Harish Rao, the former TRS legislator, said, “I challenge Mr Srinivas to contest from Nizamabad, the constituency he lost in the last elections, and defeat Mr Laxminarayana, who had resigned for the Telangana cause.”
The OU student leaders issued a warning to him. “If Mr Srinivas comes to campaign, we will not hesitate to attack him,” they said.
Meanwhile, the panchayat raj minister, Mr Botsa Satyanarayana, stirred the hornet’s nest seeking bifurcation of the state.
Mr Satyanarayana, who hails from the north coastal district of Vizianagaram, also suggested that people from the coastal region need not hang on to Hyderabad. They could instead develop Vijayawada as the new capital, he said.
“There is nothing wrong in having two Telugu speaking states and two Telugu speaking Chief Ministers,” he remarked.
Elsewhere, 33 Congress Telangana MLAs lodged a complaint with the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, alleging that the expenditure in the region was not proportionate to its size and population.
They urged the CM to indicate the income from various regions, sources and region-wise allocation of funds for various developmental works and socio-economic activity.(DC)
