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TRS to boycott?all-party?meeting on Telangana

HYDERABAD — Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the political party in the forefront of the separate statehood movement for Telangana, on Sunday announced its decision to boycott the January 6 all party meeting called by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram to discuss the justice B.N. Sri Krishna Committee report on the issue of separate statehood for Telangana.

Ridiculing the home minister’s decision to invite two representatives from each of the eight recognised political parties in Andhra Pradesh, TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao said: “This move is aimed at further complicating the issue since it is a virtual invitation for divergent views from the political parties. It is unethical and will not help solve the problem.”
TRS is the second party to announce its decision to boycott the meeting after BJP, which had made it clear that it had no intentions of attending the meeting since the Sri Krishna committee itself lacked any constitutional sanctity and validity. Besides these two parties, Telangana MPs from the ruling Congress are also mulling over the idea of boycotting the meeting, while the main opposition Telugu Desam Party is still undecided about its stand.
“By inviting two representatives from each party, Chidambaram has only opened the doors for divergent views to emerge. This is nothing but a move to dodge the issue of separate statehood for Telangana. We stand by our demand that the UPA government at the centre introduce a Bill for the formation of Telangana state in the budget session of Parliament,” Rao said.
The TRS chief, whose fast-unto-death led the Centre to announce that it would take steps for the formation of a separate Telangana state, said he had every reason to believe that the Home Minister’s move was to ensure that no consensus emerges from the meeting so that this could be used as an excuse to further delay the process of formation of a separate state. “We are still willing to attend the meeting if Chidambaram decides to invite only one representative from each party and elicit a single opinion from each of them,” he said.
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