KCR offers to quit, TRS in disarry

Hyderabad, Jun 1 (UNI) Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K Chandrasekhara Rao today offered to quit his post owning ''moral responsibility'' after stunned by the party's defeat in two of the four Lok Sabha seats and nine of the 16 Assembly seats in the byelections projected by the party as a referendum on the issue of statehood for Telangana.

Mr Rao, who also fielded his party candidate in the byelection to the Khairatabad Assembly seat caused by the death of Congress MLA P Janardhan Reddy was hoping to see the party win the 17 MLA seats and offered to resign as party president shocked by the party's poor performance.

On coming to know of it through the electronic media, two party activists doused kerosene and tried to immolate themselves, before party leaders rescued them.

Shocked by the leader's offer, second rung leaders tried to convince the TRS chief that fighting the elections on its own, the party, had, in fact, won seven MLA seats as against only six by the Congress and four by the TDP in the Telangana region, party sources said.

The party leaders also tried to convince him saying that only because of his leadership, the ruling Congress which had been chanting the ''development'' mantra had declared that the party was not against statehood for Telangana.

So also was the TDP, which had been all along for united Andhra Pradesh, changed its stand and declared that it too was not against statehood for Telangana, they argued and wanted their leader to continue to lead the party and the Telangana movement.

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