Jana Reddy Loses Calm In Telangana Assembly

A piquant situation prevailed in the Telangana Assembly on Tuesday as the treasury benches and the main Opposition party Congress vied for owning up Telangana Statehood to their own parties and indulged in a slugfest.

Finance Minister Etela Rajender, Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy and IT Minister K T Rama Rao almost indulged in a wordy duel taking the whole House into a tizzy.

The House suddenly heated up as Reddy hastened to add that the Congress in the State and at the Centre could have suppressed the Telangana movement with an iron fist, but abstained from doing so.

With this, as Rajender tried to give a rebuff to the Congress leader, Minister K T Rama Rao intervened and expressed grief at the Congress leader's "provocative" comments, and said that such language was not up to the Reddy's stature, and also sought a withdrawal of the comment.

It all began when Finance Minister Etela Rajender said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had came up with the Mission Bhagiratha scheme to provide water to "my Telangana" sisters in rural areas as they would no longer need come wait in queues to fetch water from handpumps. Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy unexpectedly stood and objected to the particular phrase used by the Minister.

Jana Reddy lost his temper momentarily and, in an almost emotional outburst, said that it was not "Naa Telangana".

After this, KTR said that there was nothing wrong in using the phrase, which meant "mine" and "ours" in a broader sense. KTR urged Jana Reddy to withdraw his remark that the Congress regime at the State and the Centre could have suppressed the Statehood movement. Rao said that such anger over non-issues was uncalled for.

"What Rajender said was not wrong at all, as it is simply how Telangana is spoken," KTR added.