Naidu slams Centre over Telangana

NEW DELHI|HYDERABAD: TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu, who did a complete U-turn on Telangana, put the onus on dousing the Andhra fire on the Manmohan Singh government.

“The Centre of India has complicated issue now. It is now for the government of India to douse the fire ignited by it,” he told a press conference in Hyderabad. Mr Naidu also accused home minister P Chidambaram and law minister M Veerappa Moily of playing with the sensitivites of the people of Andhra Pradesh through their “hasty and thoughtless decision.”

“It is now beyond political parties and beyond the leaders. The reaction was so spontaneous that MPs, MLAs and other elected representatives cutting across party lines have tendered their resignation from their respective posts. In fact, even political parties have split vertically on the issue,” he said.

The TDP leader also questioned the way the Centre dealt with the issue. Claiming that chief minister K Rosaiah was kept in the dark, the TDP leader said that the Congress did not even consult its UPA partners on such a sensitive issue.

He also cited the DMK chief M Karunandhi’s statement on Telangana to drive home his point that it was a “hasty” decision. While talking to reporters in Chennai on Sunday, the Tamil Nadu chief minister had criticised the Centre, saying that ‘‘ the lesson to be drawn from the present crisis (in Andhra Pradesh) is that one should neither make a belated announcement nor a hasty decision thereafter’’

In his interaction with the media, Mr Naidu blamed the Congress for “doing nothing” in the last five years on Telangana. “The Congress could not convince the people or its own partymen. It could not build a consensus on the separate statehood issue among various parties or even within it.”

Mr Naidu, whose party had supported the formation of a separate Telangana state during the elections earlier this year, parried a question on whether there would be any change in his party's stand on the issue in the wake of the ongoing agitation for a united Andhra Pradesh. “People did not give me mandate in 2009 despite our stand on Telangana. Now we have to discuss everything again in the party and take a decision. We are a very disciplined party, but we too are unable to find a solution to the current crisis,” he said.