Congress legislators hailing from the Telangana region have severed their links with the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC), which is spearheading the movement for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Telangana Congress MLAs, MPs and ministers held a meeting here on Friday where they decided to distance themselves from the JAC.
Announcing this at a press conference, former minister and party legislator, K Jana Reddy, said they would now form a Telangana Congress Action Committee to fight for the cause of securing separate statehood to the region.
The JAC, comprising representatives of various political parties and a string of pro-Telangana outfits, had given a call for resignation of all the elected representatives from the Telangana region in protest against the terms of reference of the Justice Srikrishna Committee. It has also called for social boycott of Telangana leaders who do not resign from their posts.
However, except two legislators, the Congress MLAs and MPs ignored the JAC call. Telugu Desam Party (TDP) members too did not resign stating they would submit their resignations only after the Congress legislators put in their papers.
Congress MLAs and MPs are also irked by the pro-Telangana activists, who attacked their houses for not quitting their posts.
In fact, there had been enough indications in the past few days of Congress moving out of JAC. It all started with Congress MPs Forum convenor Ponnam Prabhakar accusing the JAC of becoming “a pocket borough” of TRS. "We take strong objection to the JAC’s unilateral call for boycott of legislators who do not quit. We will not quit but will continue to pursue the statehood cause,” he had said a few days ago.
Meanwhile, in response to JAC’s call, 10 TRS MLAs had put in their papers along with one member each from TDP, BJP and PRP. Their resignations have been accepted by Assembly Speaker, N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
On the other hand, JAC convenor, M Kodandaram, reiterated that only through resignations by the elected represented, they can put pressure on the Centre for formation of a Telangana state.
