BJP National Council to firm up strategy on Telangana

Hyderabad, Jan 24 (UNI) The National Council of the Bharatiya Janata Party will discuss the strategy to be adopted for forming a separate Telangana state, during its meet on January 28 and 29 in New Delhi.

Informing this to reporters here today, BJP State President Bandaru Dattatreya demanded that the Congress make known its stand on the issue without any further delay.

Asking whether the UPA Committee, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, still existed, he said it was 'unfortunate'that the Congress alone had not come out with its stand on the issue.

The Congress had become a ''laughing stock'' with those close to Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and supporters of Telangana within the ruling party dragging the issue to streets, even as the Congress high command was watching the developments as a ''mute spectator''.

It was the BJP which had given a new lease of life to the fledgling TRS party, which the Congress tried to liquidate, by taking a firm stand on the issue and challenging the Congress to introduce a bill in Parliament for creation of Telangana state, the BJP leader said.

The party had collected signatures in support of separate Telangana from as many as 4,300 villages so far in the region and the same would be submitted to President Pratibha Patil, he added.

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