Telangana Congress leaders to meet Rahul

New Delhi, April 4: Telangana Congress leaders are scheduled to meet Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday to discuss strategies to counter the BJP and TRS in the state. Congress has to take on both the BJP and TRS in the state to keep itself relevant in the state. In the recent Hyderabad municipal polls, while the Congress lost badly, the BJP emerged more powerful.

In the 119-membered Telangana Assembly, the Congress has just 6 MLAs, while the MIM are more in number. The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are engaged in a war of words, blaming each other for the delay in hiking the quota for STs and paddy procurement.

The issue of ST quota hit the headlines after Union minister of State for Tribal Affairs Bishweswar Tudu told the Lok Sabha on March 21 that his ministry has not received any proposal from the Telangana government seeking an increase in reservations for STs to 12 per cent. He was responding to a question by Congress MP from Telangana, N. Uttam Kumar Reddy.

The TRS was quick to demand removal of the minister from the post for his "blatant lies" in Parliament. It also gave a notice for moving a privilege motion against him for "misleading" the Lok Sabha. The TRS maintained that the state government not only made a proposal but the state Assembly passed a Bill for increasing the reservations to STs from 6.8 per cent to 10 per cent and sent it to the ministry of tribal affairs. The TRS government, which is already engaged in a bitter row with the Centre over procurement of paddy, stepped up its attack on the BJP.