• Home
• /
• World

Chandrasekhar Rao keeps mum on TRS-Cong merger

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao, who is widely seen as the person who successfully revived and led the separate statehood movement for Telangana, has been on a thanking spree in the national capital and has so far met President Pranab Mukherjee, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and union ministers.

KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, and other party leaders called on Manmohan Singh on Tuesday and thanked him for getting the Telangana Bill passed in both the houses of parliament, besides discussing other issues related to the new state. He has, however, so far remained mum on the issue of merger of TRS with Congress, a promise he had made to the ruling party in the run-up to the creation of Telangana state.

TRS leader and MP Manda Jagannath told mediapersons after the meeting: “The purpose of the visit was to thank the prime minister for the initiative. The issue of merger or alliance between the two parties will take place in due time depending on the issues discussed and agreement reached.”

With the Telangana statehood issue firmly settled, the TRS is now having second thoughts on merging with the Congress given the ground realities and sentiments of thousands of cadres. The party is now in favour of forging an electoral alliance with the Congress instead of outright merger.

The Congress leadership has sent feelers indicating that it was willing to project KCR as the first chief minister of the new Telangana state in the event of merger.

However, there is a growing pressure from the party leaders against merger on the ground that the party’s identity and image, built over several years of struggle and sacrifices, would be lost forever. Moreover, several senior TRS leaders have been arguing that the party has a “historic responsibility” to play a role in the reconstruction of Telangana state. They have been pitching for alliance with Congress for the forthcoming simultaneous elections to the Assembly and Lok Sabha.

“We are guided by aspirations and interests of our party cadre rather than an ambition to rule the new state. The people of Telangana know that TRS is solely responsible for the success of the statehood movement,” a senior party leader said. “There are people who toiled for 13 long years through some of the toughest times. We cannot ignore their views and aspirations at the time of final victory,” he said.

In the present Lok Sabha, Congress has 12 out of 17 Lok Sabha seats from Telangana while TRS has two. Out of 119 Assembly seats in the region, Congress and TRS account for 46 and 17 seats respectively. The sub-regional party is expected to bargain hard for a lion’s share of Assembly seats, while leaving a majority of LS seats to Congress.

Meanwhile, KCR is expected to return to Hyderabad on Wednesday where a grand welcome is being planned for the “Telangana hero.” TRS sources said that he would hold wide consultations with party leaders before taking a final decision on whether to merge or go for a tie-up with Congress.

news@khaleejtimes.com