The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday reiterated its commitment to smaller states, including the carving out a separate Telangana, if the party returns to power in 2014 elections. “The BJP is committed to a separate Telangana. The Congress and the TD have ditched the people of the region by backtracking on statehood. The people are now looking towards the BJP,” party’s state president G. Kishan Reddy said.
Addressing a well attended public meeting to mark the conclusion of his ‘Telangana Poru Yatra’ at Nizam College Grounds, he wondered why there should not be two Telugu speaking states in the country when there are 10 Hindi speaking states. “AP should be divided immediately for administrative reasons as well due to the demand from the people,” he said. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, former party national presidents M. Venkaiah Naidu and Bangaru Laxman, BJP national secretary K. Laxman, P. Murlidhar Rao, Bandaru Dattatreya, N. Indrasena Reddy, B. Venkat Reddy, TJAC convener M. Kodandaram and others attended the meeting.
Mr Venkaiah Naidu asked the UPA government to immediately carve out Telangana. “If the Centre fails to carve out Telangana, the BJP-led NDA will do it in 2014 after coming to power,” he said. Mr Naidu said some people were trying to distort facts on the separate statehood issue. “We are not against any region. The BJP is committed to smaller states and carving out Telangana is on its agenda,” he asserted. Claiming that the three states carved out by the BJP were doing exceptionally well, Mr Naidu raised ‘Jai Telangana’ and ‘Jai Andhra’ slogans.
