KCR asserts merger talks only after T Bill

New Delhi: TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao declared that he would consider the merger of TRS with Congress only after the Telangana Bill is passed.

The TRS was represented at the all-party meeting of GoM by KCR, K Keshav Rao and G Vivek. KCR said, 'We told the GoM that TRS stands for Telangana with 10 districts and Hyderabad as the capital. I expect that Telangana Bill will come in December.' The Telangana Bill will be tabled in the Winter Session of Parliament, he said.

Telangana will be the 29th State. It must enjoy Centre-State relations like the other 28 States. He expressed dismay over media reports about the Antony Committee proposals that covered a broad canvas of issues. 'If true, as reported by media, they go against the basic tenets of the Indian Constitution.

The proposals will create a special class of privileged people in Hyderabad city. Telangana people have precisely agitated against this manipulative and exploitative class.

Hence, any attempt to mollify this class and perpetuate their hegemony in the city of Hyderabad will negate the very purpose of the creation of Telangana,' he said.

Hyderabad, with its environs is the only growth engine for entire Telangana. Any attempt to strip the democratically-elected government of Telangana of its legitimate powers will debilitate the very State apparatus.

The kinds of restrictions that are being tagged to Telangana State, if true, would create more problems than solve them. They are bound to increase the animosities among Telugu speaking people of different regions. Therefore, the new state of Telangana should be on a par with the other 28 states of the country, he said.

KCR opposed sharing of Hyderabad revenue with Seemandhra. How one State can share its revenue from the capital with another State, he wondered. He also opposed the reported move to entrust law & order to an agency other than the State Government.

The TRS, he said, firmly believes that water allocation and other related issues between the two States must be adjudicated by a tribunal headed by a Supreme Court Judge.

Several projects have been constructed on Krishna and Godavari River over a period of time. The TRS is committed to honouring the legally-constructed projects having legitimate allocation of waters.

But of late, several illegal projects without any statutory permission are in pipeline. None of them enjoys any allocation of waters from CWC.

The TRS will never agree to legitimising such illegal projects without any water allocations, he said. Brijesh Kumar Tribunal has objected to such projects as they exist outside Krishna Basin.

Some examples are Galeru Nagari, Handri Neeva, Kandaleru, Somashila, Veligodu, Veligonda, Chitravathi Balancing Reservoir and Lingala Canal, he said.