Telangana Is Conspiracy To Divide Telugus: Gade

Former minister Gade Venkat Reddy, on Thursday, said that the people of Andhra Pradesh would not allow certain political leaders to divide Telugus by bifurcating the state.

Talking to reporters in the Assembly premises, Gade said that the Telangana demand was a conspiracy to divide Telugus across the world, and said that such conspiracies would never be successful and would be defeated by the people.

He maintained the ongoing Samaikyandhra movement in the Seemandhra region is a people's movement.

Gade said that several prominent leaders from Telangana, including former chief minister Marri Chenna Reddy, had raised the demand for Telangana, but had maintained silence later in the wider interest of the Telugu people.

He said that the division of the state would badly hit the identity and power of Telugus, not only in the country, but across the world.

The former minister demanded that the Centre maintain status quo of Andhra Pradesh by implementing Chapter VI of the Srikrishna Committee. He said that Hyderabad belongs to the people of the 3 regions, and that it cannot be given just to the Telangana region.

Gade questioned the authority of the Congress Working Committee and UPA Coordination Committee in taking a decision to divide the state. He said that the UPA is the representative body of political parties from different parts of the country, and added that people from Kashmir, Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh cannot decide the fate of Telugus.

He said that neither the CWC nor the UPA had taken into consideration the opinion of people from the Seemandhra region.

The Congress MLA claimed that except for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, no political party had fully supported the demand for the formation of a Telangana state. (INN)