Telangana stir: Cong MP 'attacked' by TRS student's wing

Hyderabad, Sep 18: In a violent turn to the ongoing movement by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) fighting to achieve a separate state, Congress MP Lagadapati Rajagopal was today attacked allegedly by students belonging to the Telangana Students Union, the student wing of the TRS, for expressing 'anti-TRS' statement.

Tension prevailed at the Press Club at Somajiguda here where Mr Rajagopal, also the chief of the Lanco Group of Industries, was attacked. He later staged a dharna.

Mr Rajagopal, who strongly opposed the statement of fellow MP Sarve Satyanarayana that he had won with TRS support, however, withdrew his dharna after top Congress leaders, including PCC President K Keshava Rao and several ministers, urged him not to make the issue a public affair.

Mr Satyanarayana earlier urged TRS Chief K Chandrasekara Rao to withdraw his resignation from Lok Sabha and join the Congress-led Governments at the Centre and in Andhra Pradesh to strengthen UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi's hands.

He reportedly cautioned Mr Rajagopal that he would not be able to move about in Hyderabad if he expressed himself against the sentiments of the Telangana people.

A little later, Telangana Vidhyarthi Sangham activists chased and attacked Mr Rajagopal representing Vijayawada in the Lok Sabha with sticks near the Press Club, protesting over his remarks against Congress leaders from Telangana Sarve Satyanarayana and Madhu Yaski Goud, reminding of the 1969 stir which claimed hundreds of lives. Police had a tough time in bringing the situation under control.

They have arrested several students who attacked the Congress MP.

Reposing faith in the leadership of Ms Gandhi and Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Mr Satyanarayana, talking to reporters, turned down the TRS demand for his resignation from the Congress to join the statehood stir and urged the former ally to join hands with the Congress supremo who was striving to evolve a consensus on the issue.

As the agotatopm took an emotive turn, reminding one of the 1969 stir, Former TRS Minister A Chandrasekar, talking to reporters, dissociated his party from the stir saying that downtrodden sections within the Congress were upset with 'provocative' statements made by Andhra leaders like Mr Rajagopal, Union Minister Renuka Choudhary and Mr Rayapati Sambasiva Rao.

Mr Rajagopal, who withdrew his dharna at the request of party leaders, however, refused to tender an appology to his colleague Satyanarayana or the TRS.

In Vijayawada, Congress activists burnt the effigy of TRS Supremo K Chandrasekhara Rao in different places and resorted to road blockade on the arterial Karl Marx road in support of Mr Rajagopal and demanding the arrest of those responsible for attacking their leader.

The two Congress MPs from Telangana, Mr Madhu Yaskhi Goud of Nizamabad and Mr Sarvey Satyanarayana of Siddipet had come out openly in favour of the demand for separate statehood to the region after the TRS chief and his deputy A Narendra quit the Manmohan Singh Government.

During the war of words between the two parties, PCC Chief K Keshava Rao challenged the TRS Supremo to respond to challenge from Sports Minister M Satyanarayana Rao to resign his Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat and he would ensure holding of byelection within a month.

Following this, Mr Chandrasekara Rao announced his resignation from the Lok Sabha, too, forcing the State Congress, under pressure from the party high command, to find out ways to overcome the political crisis in which it had landed and tried to mollify the TRS.

UNI