BJP to endorse seperate Telangana at natl. executive

Vijayawada, Mar 25: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Andhra Pradesh unit President N Indrasena Reddy today (Mar 25, 2006) said the BJP's national executive would endorse the eight-year-old resolution adopted by the state unit at Kakinada favouring a separate Telangana state.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the meeting of the BJP's state unit presidents in New Delhi on March 17 discussed the issue of smaller states with the party's National President Rajnath Singh, former BJP President L K Advani and party Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, among others.

The party decided to give a positive indication to the people that it was in favour of smaller states for faster development.

Mr Reddy said due to the previous association with the Telugu Desam which was against smaller states, the BJP had kept the Kakinada resolution in cold storage. ''Now we are not having any tie-up with TDP'', he added.

He said though the leaders of political parties in the state favoured 'separate Telangana', the party's view was that people should not be divided on the pretext of separate states.

Ruling out any understanding with the telangana rashtra samithi (TRS) in the future elections, he said the party will fight on its own.

UNI