Not dependent on any party, Congress leaders from Telangana say

HYDERABAD: With the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) ruling out a merger, Congress leaders from Telangana region on Tuesday expressed confidence that the national party would put up an impressive show in the coming general and legislative assembly elections.

"We are not dependent on any other party. We are confident of facing the municipal, Lok Sabha and assembly polls," senior Congress leader and former minister D Sridhar Babu told reporters here on Wednesday.

TRS president Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday hit out against Congress for allegedly imposing several conditions on Telangana, while granting statehood to the region, and ruled out a merger of TRS with the national party.

Taking exception to the TRS president's attack on the Congress, another senior Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir alleged that Chandrasekhar Rao never spoke in Parliament in support of the Telangana demand.

It was because of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's firmness that the Telangana achieved statehood, he said.

Recalling that the TRS president, along with his family members, had thanked Sonia Gandhi for accepting the demand for Telangana state, Congress MLA G Venkata Ramana Reddy asked how fair it was for him to blame the Congress.