Whose Telangana is it anyway?

​Hyderabad: “Whose Telangana is it? Why do you refer it to as ‘my Telangana’? Did you bring it? Why don’t you say ‘our Telangana’?” snapped Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy in the state Assembly on Tuesday during a discussion on Mission Bhageeratha.

Making a brief intervention, Finance Minister Eatala Rajender said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had taken up Mission Bhageeratha programme as he felt that “Na Telangana Aada Biddalu” (daughters of my Telangana) should be relieved of the trouble of walking long distances with pots on their heads to get some water.

Taking strong objection to the use of the words ‘Na Telangana’ by the Finance Minister, Jana Reddy said: “The Congress party was in power both at the Centre and in the State in the united AP before the bifurcation.

Had the Congress wanted to suppress the TRS, it could have done in one minute, but it never did so. Sometimes we wonder if we had done a mistake. It was the Congress party which gave Telangana. You should refer to Telangana as ‘Our Telangana’ Reddy said.

Reacting to Jana Reddy’s remarks, Minister for Urban Development K T Rama Rao said the Congress party’s track record on Telangana was well-known.

The merger of Telangana with Andhra in 1956, shooting down of 372 people who had fought for a separate state in 1961, and the scuttling of the process of creating separate state from 2004 to 2014 happened during the Congress regime, he pointed out.

Separate Telangana had become a reality since the Congress government had no option but to accept the wishes of the people, KTR said.

He said that Jana Reddy should explain if he was regretting that separate T State had been carved. The Minister said the Congress party had ruled the country with a feudal mindset and that was why a national party had ended up as a big regional party.

He demanded that Jana Reddy should withdraw his remarks.