Cong has left Telangana issue to Sonia: Digvijay

Hyderabad, Sept 20: Making it clear that the Congress would not not take BJP's support on the Telangana issue, AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh today announced the PCC has resolved to leave the issue to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and warned party members of stern action if they continued to air their views in public even under provocation.

Briefing newsmen on the emergency extended APCC executive and Congress Legislature Party meeting here, he said the meeting pledged to abide by Ms Gandhi's decision on the issue and work for implementation among the people.

''The party is concerned about the issue of Telangana. We will double our efforts to achieve consensus on the issue,'' he said, adding that it was unfortunate that the the TRS which had signed a joint statement agreeing for constitution of the Second States' Reorganisation Commission (SRC) prior to polls and left the issue to Ms Gandhi for evolving a consensus after joining the UPA government, had left the UPA.

He said efforts were on to persuade TRS to rejoin the UPA government.

After the byelection to the Lok Sabha from Bobbili, the party would gather opinion from its cadres at the grassroots level on the Telangana issue, Mr Singh, who addressed the media along with Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and PCC President K Keshava Rao, said. Maintaining that inspite of all efforts, consensus could not not be reached among the UPA allies in the state, with CPI, CPI(M) and AIMIM opposing bifurcation of the state, he said ''there is no question of the party taking support from the BJP''.

Denying that the Congress party had approached the BJP for its support to get the Bill passed in Parliament for revival of legislative council in the state, he recalled that the BJP while leading the NDA had rejected the Congress demand for constitution of the second SRC.

The AICC General Secretary, who flew in here to resolve the differences that erupted between Congress MPs from Andhra and Telangana regions, described as 'unwarranted' the war of words among Congress leaders leading to manhandling of a party MP.

The party had taken note of the feelings of partymen, he said when asked about Congress MP from Telangana S Satyanarayana's demand for an apology from Mr L Rajagopal, his party colleague in the Lok Sabha for his alleged 'provocative remarks'.

Union Ministers Renuka Chowdhary, Pallam Raju, Congress Parliamentary Party Deputy Leader G Venkataswamy and former Chief Ministers N Bhaskara Rao and N Janardhana Reddy,MP, were among those who attended the meeting.

UNI