HYDERABAD: Karimnagar Lok Sabha MP from Telangana Rashtra Samithi B Vinod Kumar pooh-poohed senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s statement that TRS had no role in the formation of Telangana state.
“Even people of Andhra Pradesh would find Azad’s statements funny,” Kumar told reporters here on Friday. The people of Telangana know TRS’ role. That is why they voted for us in the 2014 Assembly elections,” he said.
“Congress is basically anti-Telangana. No Congress MLA resigned from office for the sake of Telangana. They did not even participate in the agitation,” he alleged. “Azad does not know anything about Telangana, but he thinks he knows everything.”
He recalled that around 32 parties in the country were in support of Telangana state, which was instrumental in state formation. “Sonia Gandhi was more than happy listening to then-CM YS Rajashekhar Reddy when he spoke to her about suppressing the Telangana movement,” he said.
Harish too fires salvo
Irrigation minister T Harish Rao, criticising Azad, said that it was TRS founder-president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s deeksha that made the formation of Telangana possible and not the ‘generosity’ of the Congress party. “If Congress really had any love for Telangana, the State would have been former much earlier. The party claimed to people that they ‘gave’ them Telangana, but in the end, TRS won,” he said.