HYDERABAD: The rail roko being planned by the TJAC on March 1 from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. is likely to paralyse transportation in the entire Telangana region.
A lot of ground work has been done with the TJAC leaders holding talks with leaders at the mandal level in all the districts of Telangana. It has already given a call to the people in villages to spill out and sit on the railway tracks and ensure that no train moves that day. The Telangana cultural troupes would also be performing dances and singing songs on the railway tracks.
They have cautioned the people of possible preventive arrests by the police. The TJAC also wants another set of leaders to be ready to organise protests on the railway tracks if the police takes into custody the existing ones.
The protest would be different from other routine rail rokos since the protests would not be concentrated on main stations only but on the tracks throughout the Telangana region. People living in villages beside railway tracks would go sit on the tracks on the day.
Though this would cause a lot of hardship to the people, there is no other alternative and the Congress would be able to understand the urgency of the need for delivering Telangana only if transporation is paralysed, Prof M Kodandaram, TJAC chairman said.
Though the Congress has appealed to the TJAC to defer their rail roko and siege of Hyderabad on March 10, the TJAC has decided to continue with its programme. Kodandaram, after discussisng the protests and eliciting cooperation from CWC special invitee K Keshava Rao and MP G Vivek, said that though the TJAC appreciated the way the MPs had raised the issue of separate Telangana in Lok Sabha, the TJAC wants the momentum to continue and wants the Congress to cooperate with them.
The Congress leaders wanted the TJAC to defer their agitation since the Congress MPs from Telangana had been invited for discussion on the issue in the Core Committee on March 1. The TJAC is expecting a statement on the issue by March 5 from the Centre.