Hyderabad: The Congress high command did a U-turn on Telengana issue following criticism from local party leaders denouncing the decision to set up a States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) to resolve the Telengana and Vidarbha issues.

Stung by the ferocity of criticism by Telengana supporters within the Congress, Verappa Moily, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) member and in-charge of the Congress affairs in the state, said his party was always in favour of the demand for a separate Telengana state.

“But we have not been able to convince the UPA partners to support the demand for Telengana or Vidarbha,” he said. Moily said even the TRS leader Chandrasekhar Rao was not able to convince all partners of the UPA for a separate Telengana state and hence the Congress is finally resorting to the second SRC for a final and comprehensive solution to the issue.

Quoting from the party manifesto of 2004, Moily said, “the Congress party had many valid reasons for supporting the demands for separate states of Vidarbha and Telengana”. Contending that there was no deviation in the Congress policy towards the Telengana issue he said, “the party has now decided to set up the second SRC (as agreed with the TRS during the pre-2004 poll campaign ) to focus on the formation of Vidarbha and Telengana.”

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s Mayawati’s demand for trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh will also be considered by the SRC whenever it is formed, he said. He brushed off the wave of opposition to the SRC by the state political leaders, saying it is due to local political compulsions.

Moily, who is in Hyderabad to participate in the training camp for the Youth Congress workers, said the party high command will take disciplinary action against party leaders and workers who are publicly criticising the party government in the state. His reaction came in the wake of several party MLA’s and MP’s accusing the Andhra Pradesh government of corruption. On party MP Hariram Jogaiah’s declaration of film actor Chiranjeevi as the future chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Moily said: “Jogaiah’s remarks were not desirable”. Jogaiah is meeting him in New Delhi on Friday to explain his stand, he added.

Source : DNAIndia