A day on which Veerappa Moily made a
statement that a committee proposed on Telangana did not automatically mean bifurcation of the state, saw many other voices on the vexing issue - just like any other day in recent times.
Starved of issues after the Centre took the sting out of the T-agitation by announcing that a committee would be formed, Professor Kodandaram of the Osmania University, Convenor of the Telangana political JAC, today renewed his demand that the SI physical fitness tests, scheduled for February 6, 2010, be postponed by a month. For good measure, he added that Andhra region police officers are taking revenge on Telangana police cadres.
Home Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy assured that she would take this issue up with the CM. Responding to Kodandaram's demand that all cases against Telangana activists be dropped in accordance with Union Home Minister Chidambaram's assurance on December 9, she said that the state had not received any written order from Chidambaram to this effect.
TRS Chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, addressing a minority gathering, said that Hindus and Muslims of Telangana should fight unitedly for a separate Telangana. He said that people of Andhra were grabbing lands belonging to the Wakf Board.
T Harish Rao of the TRS said that Telangana without Hyderabad was unimaginable. He said that the TRS and its leaders were not looking for credit in the Telangana struggle, and that getting separate statehood was their only noble intention.
Mandakrishna Madiga said that the Assembly Speaker was acting like a dictator in
not accepting resignations, and in taking his own sweet time to just pronounce that the resignations were technically faulty. The BJP, through Bandaru Dattatreya, said that a discussion was needed on the Speaker's decision to reject resignations.
A new body, the Telangana Youth Federation, started in Hyderabad today, and had film director Shankar stating that they would work to ensure that there were no starvation deaths and suicides in Telangana.
Minor agitations across the region continued, quite subdued relative to a couple of weeks back. Some were novel - in Warangal's Katrapalli, people climbed a hillock to protest, and some of them started a fast-to-death for separate statehood there. And a rally of goats was taken out in Jaggayyapalli of Karimnagar. In Suryapet of Nalgonda, Minister for IT and Youth Affairs Komatireddy's convoy was stoned by supporters of rival Damodar Reddy.