Wednesday, August 23 2006 14:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha was today (Aug 23, 2006) adjourned for half an hour after four MPs of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) created a ruckus over the creation of a separate Telangana state.

The MPs, minus TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao, had staged a sit-in outside Parliament House before the session began. And as soon as the Lok Sabha met, they gathered near Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's podium raising slogans like 'Jai Telangana', 'respect common minimum programme' and 'respect people's verdict'.

Despite repeated pleas from the speaker, the parliamentarians led by A. Narendra, the minister of state for rural development who resigned along with Labour Minister Rao on Tuesday, refused to go back to their seats and speak on the issue.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was present in the house as the MPs continued to disrupt proceedings for almost half an hour. Fed up, an exasperated Chatterjee asked all party leaders to decide whether the house should run or not and adjourned the house till 12 noon.

The two TRS ministers had submitted their resignations to the prime minister Tuesday to protest the delay in granting statehood to Telangana.

However, the TRS, which has five MPs in the Lok Sabha and 26 legislators supporting a Congress-led government in Andhra Pradesh, said it would not withdraw its support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

They have been demanding that the UPA make a categorical announcement that a bill to create a separate state would be tabled in the winter session of parliament.

Rao, who met Congress chief and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi Tuesday, is believed to have been reassured that the Congress-led government was committed to the creation of the state, a promise given in the ruling coalition's agenda for governance, the common minimum programme.

The demand for statehood to the backward Telangana region that comprises 10 districts, including Hyderabad, is more than three decades old.