Cong leaders meet Central leadership over Telangana

Congress leaders belonging to both pro and anti-Telangana factions are in the capital today to build pressure on the central leadership as the party gears up to take a final view on the vexed issue of separate statehood.

There are indications that a meeting of the Congress Working Committee to decide the issue could take place soon, though the party leaders have been maintaining that no date has been fixed for it as yet. 

Sources said in their separate meetings, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and state Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana have made detailed presentations before AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, who is the party in-charge of the state, and Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad here on the statehood issue.

Deputy Chief Minister C Damodar Raja Narasimha, who is from Telangana, is also meeting the leaders separately to present his views, the sources said.

Earlier, Singh had submitted a report on the issue to Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The Congress Core Group had discussed the Telangana issue earlier this month and decided to refer the long-pending matter to the Congress Working Committee for a final view.

Amid talk that Congress leadership may take a decision in favour of separate Telangana, a ruling Congress MLA and two YSR Congress legislators from non-Telangana regions said in Hyderabad yesterday that they have resigned from their posts in support of the united Andhra Pradesh cause.