BJP asks UPA to table Telangana bill in parliament

BJP president Rajnath Singh has asked the UPA government to table a bill in parliament to carve out a separate Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh, saying his party would extend unconditional support.

Addressing a public meeting here Monday night, Rajnath Singh said that if the government convenes a special session of parliament to table the bill, the BJP would support it.

At the public meeting at Nizam College grounds, former state minister N. Janardhana Reddy merged his Telangana Nagara Samithi with the BJP.

Janardhana Reddy was a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader before leaving the party in 2011 to join the Telangana movement.

Singh promised that the BJP would form Telangana state within a year after coming to power at the centre. He also assured people that if the BJP failed to get majority on its own, it would not ally with any party opposed to Telangana.

Noting that over 700 people committed suicide over the delay in the formation of Telangana state, the BJP chief appealed to youth not to end their lives.

Holding the Congress-led UPA government responsible for the suicides, he alleged that the central government had gone back on the promise made in 2004 to deliver Telangana.

Claiming that people were looking at the BJP as the only alternative, he said the Congress had lost the moral right to remain in power because of corruption, inefficiency and wrong policies.

Janardhana Reddy said the BJP alone could deliver Telangana as the Congress had repeatedly betrayed the people, while the Third Front was also comprised of parties opposed to Telangana.

BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu said if the UPA government had the political will, it should bring a bill in parliament for Telangana state.