TRS offers to share Hyderabad as capital for few years

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Thursday made it clear that Telangana state without Hyderabad as its capital is unacceptable to it but offered to share the city, saying other proposed states can use it as their capital till they make their own arrangements.

TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao warned the central government against creating any controversy over the status of Hyderabad city, saying Telangana without Hyderabad would be like a headless body.

"If any problems are created over Hyderabad, Telangana will boil," he said while addressing a meeting at TRS office.

He said no proposal except Telangana state with Hyderabad as its capital was acceptable to them.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, mooted the idea that rulers of Seemandhra (the other proposed state comprising Rayalaseema and Andhra regions) function from Hyderabad for few years.

"They can have a secretariat here. We have two halls in the assembly. They can use one of them and function from for three, four or five years till they develop their own capital," he said.

KCR was confident that separate Telangana state would soon become a reality. He said with the movement intensifying due to ongoing 'people's strike', the central government had no alternative but to deliver Telangana.

The TRS leader on Wednesday had claimed that the central government was considering various proposals on Telangana, including merging Anantapur and Kurnool districts of Rayalaseema with Telangana to create a separate state.

Reacting sharply to this, leaders from Rayalaseema said division of the region is unacceptable to them.

Ministers T.G. Venkatesh and Sailajanath told reporters that there was no question of agreeing to merger of two districts with Telangana and that they would take up the issue with the central government.

Leaders of the TDP also rejected the idea and termed it as KCR's 'figment of imagination'.

Former minister and Congress leader J.C. Diwakar Reddy, however, said if bifurcation of the state becomes inevitable, Rayalaseema and Telangana should be merged to form Rayala-Telangana state.

Meanwhile, the ongoing controversy surrounding 2G spectrum has dominated all other issues (including Telangana), and has claimed the total attention of the Congress central leadership.

According to sources, after AICC General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad submits his report on what is happening in Andhra Pradesh on the Telangana issue, the Congress Core Committee will meet exclusively to discuss the issue and suggest follow-up action. This is not likely to happen before October 3 or 4.

Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy will almost certainly be called to attend the meeting.