Hyderabad: TRS president, K. Chandrasekhar Rao has sought several sops for the development of Telangana state during his his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday. He also sought an early creation of Telangana. Mr Chandrasekhar Rao, who met Dr Singh along with a party delegation to thank him for ensuring the passage of AP Reorganisation Bill in both the Houses of Parliament, urged the Prime Minister to ensure that the formation day of the new state is fixed at the earliest so that elections could be held in the two states.
The TRS supremo also met BJP president Rajnath Singh and thanked him for his party’s support to the Telangana Bill. Mr Chandrasekhar Rao is keen on the centre holding elections in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh separately. The party also submitted a memorandum seeking sops including special category status for the state and financial assistance. TRS MP Manda Jagannadham and politburo member B. Vinod Kumar said that the PM promised all support for the development of Telangana.
Mr Chandrasekhar Rao also wanted the Centre to allocate additional electricity from the central pool to Tela-ngana for at least three years besides adequate gas allocation for gas-based power plants at Shankerpally in Ranga Reddy district and at Nedanur in Karimnagar district. When asked about whether the issue of merger or alliance of the two parties came up, Mr Vinod Kumar replied in negative saying, “Any merger or alliance will take place in due time depending on the issues discussed and agreements reached.”
He added that talks were on between Cong-ress and his party on the issue and both options are being considered. “As the elections are approaching, we thou-ght we can have an alliance now and think on merger after elections,” he said, adding that large chunk of the TRS cadre favour alliance and not merger.
