Plea to take up demand for separate Rayalaseema at Delhi meet

Byreddy Rajasekhara Reddy, a former TDP leader who has been championing the cause of a separate state, met the heads of Congress and BJP in the state and urged them to take up the demand for Rayalaseema state at the all-party meet.

The backwardness of Rayalaseema region was confirmed by the Sri Krishna Committee which was appointed by Centre to go into the situation in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasekhara Reddy told reporters after a meeting with state Congress president B Satyanarayana.

He also demanded that his outfit "Rayalaseema Parirakhana Samiti" be invited for any meeting convened by the Centre.

The meeting of mainstream political parties of Andhra Pradesh has been convened by the Union Home Ministry on December 28 to discuss the Telangana issue. Similar meetings convened by the Centre to discuss the contentious issue earlier were unsuccessful as no consensus could be reached.

Meanwhile, state Congress chief B Satyanarayana expressed happiness over the state-level party convention organised yesterday passing off peacefully. Responding to the criticism of TRS that he did not wish to pay homage to those who allegedly committed suicide for the cause of Telangana at the meeting yesterday, he said he did not intend to hurt anyone.

TRS and Telangana supporters took exception to Satyanarayana refusing the demand of a Congress MP at the convention yesterday to pay homage to those who died for the Telangana cause.

Asked about Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy describing the welfare schemes in his speech yesterday being implemented by his government as "my schemes", the PCC president said there is no need to create a controversy over the matter.

"It could be just a matter of style of speaking the language. There is no need to make a controversy out of it," he said.