TRS walks out of govt
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Tuesday finally ended its alliance with the UPA government at the Centre when two of its ministers - labour minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and minister of state for rural development A Narendra - sent their re...
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Tuesday finally ended its alliance with the UPA government at the Centre when two of its ministers — labour minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and minister of state for rural development A Narendra — sent their resignations to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
The five-member TRS becomes the first party to pull out of the ruling combine in Delhi as well from its alliance with the Congress in Andhra Pradesh after a section of the UPA and Left parties once again rejected its demand for an immediate announcement on the creation of a separate Telangana state.
Though the TRS pull-out will not affect the stability of the Centre or the state government, as the ruling combinations have the required numbers even without the TRS’ support, it marks the first formal crack in the UPA.
While TRS leader Rao was holding a strategy session with his senior colleagues on Tuesday evening, a party spokesman announced the resignations of the two ministers. According to their plan, the TRS leaders would sit on a indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar from Wednesday demanding the creation of the separate state.
There are clear indications that a section of the TRS leaders are advocating the party now joining the BJP-led NDA. However, the spokesman said a final decision is yet to be taken on this matter.
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While the DMK-led Tamil Nadu allies have been opposed to a Telangana state, other allies like the NCP and RJD said they could support the creation of a separate state if there was consensus among the ruling partners. The Left parties also stuck to their opposition to the TRS demand. On its part, the Congress leaders said the maximum they could consider at this juncture was steps towards setting up a second state reorganising commission (SRS), as was committed in the Congress-TRS joint election manifesto on the eve AP assembly poll.
Even while they refused to accept the TRS demand, they for the record once again requested their ally to show ’patience’ and continue in the UPA. By calling the UPA-Left meeting, the government managers tried to project the opposition to Telangana as a collective view of the ruling combination.
Sensing this opposition, the TRS leaders gave the first formal signal of their exit when Mr Rao and Mr Narendra abruptly left the UPA-Left meeting on Tuesday afternoon. This was the culmination of a series of protests by TRS leaders during the past two years.
With statehood for Telangana nowhere in the sight, the TRS leadership has been struggling for quite some time to explain their continuance in the UPA. What has added to their impatience was the fast-eroding party base in the region.
While the Congress-controlled state government has all along been hostile to the TRS demand, resulting in the ally pulling out of the YS Rajashekhara Reddy government around six months back, the TDP has gained from the TRS decline in the last civic polls.
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