Hyderabad: Congress senior leader S. Jaipal Reddy on Wednesday said that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao should be aware of the fact that without his efforts as a Union minister, Telangana state would not have been a reality today.
Responding to Mr Rao’s comments at Tuesday’s public meeting in Warangal, Mr Reddy said it was common knowledge that there were four Union ministers from the Andhra region and he was the only one from Telangana. He said that it was due to his efforts that Telangana state came into being, with Hyderabad being retained as its capital. “Otherwise, Hyderabad would have been made a Union Territory,” he said.
Mr Reddy said that at every level, it was he who foiled the attempts by the then Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy who was creating hurdles in the formation of separate state.
Reacting to the Chief Minister’s comments at the Warangal meeting, Mr Reddy said, “KCR said that I clung on to the Union minister’s post unlike him who resigned from the LS. For his information, it was I who can take credit for the formation of Telangana state being a minister at the Centre.”
He added, “KCR had visited me in Delhi after meeting (AICC president) Sonia Gandhi and thanked us for granting Telangana. He has also asked me to be the Chief Minister of newly-formed state, to which I asked him to merge the TRS into the Congress as promised by him earlier. He told me he will look into this aspect and forgot later.”
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.
