TRS to intensify Telangana movement with road, rail blockades

[1]

After lying low for nearly two months, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on Thursday decided to intensify the movement for separate statehood to Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh.

The TRS executive, which met here, chalked out a series of protests including road and rail blockades to demand the central government table a bill in parliament for formation of separate state.

TRS president K. Chandrasekhara Rao told reporters that the movement would be intensified with road blockades in the region May 14.

The party will hold 'dharnas' (sit-ins) in all mandals (revenue divisions) on May 19. The protestors will lay siege to the offices of district collectors May 25 while a rail blockade will be organised on May 30, he said.

The workers of state-owned Singareni Colleries will participate in the protests for separate state from May 20 to June 5.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said the movement would further intensify in the first week of June as people of Telangana will mount pressure on public representatives from Congress party to resign their posts for a separate state.

Stating that a separate state is the only the solution for all injustices being done to Telangana, KCR urged people to actively participate in the movement.

The TRS chief said Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC), of which TRS is one of the constituents, would meet soon to chalk out its plan to take the movement forward.

KCR urged the state government not to go ahead with the recruitment of sub-inspectors of police till clause 14 F is deleted from Presidential Order to ensure proper representation to locals in Telangana.

He also demanded that Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy take an all-party delegation to New Delhi to urge the central government delete the clause.

KCR also warned the government against re-installing the statues of Andhra leaders on Tank Bund in Hyderabad. "The statues of eminent personalities of Telangana should also be installed. Everybody knows what will be the consequences of again installing the same statues," he said.

Protestors during the 'million march' on March 10 this year had demolished the statues of several leaders of Andhra.

TRS and other groups fighting for separate state had organised no major protest since March 10 to avoid inconvenience to students appearing in examinations.