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Congress legislators from Telangana
threaten to sit as separate group

Members of the Telangana Congress Legislators Forum (TCLF), a ginger group within the Congress Legislature Party, have threatened to sit in a separate block in the Andhra Pradesh assembly from the next session if the party high command did not favourably respond to their demand for a separate state of Telangana soon.

The TCLF sounded the warning after a three-hour meeting attended by 22 out of 41 MLAs from the region, in Hyderabad on Sunday.

Later briefing newspersons, TCLF convenor A Indrakaran Reddy said the members discussed the statements made from time to time by the party's central leaders, including head of the All India Congress Committee panel on smaller states Pranab Mukherjee, ruling out a separate Telangana.

The MLAs felt that their demand was reasonable and decided to pursue it with the high command till a favourable decision was announced. "We are confident that that the central leadership will accede to our demand," Reddy said.

The TCLF also decided to go against the official line of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee by making the separate Telangana demand a campaign issue in the elections to mandal and zilla parishads slated on July 12 and 15.

Reddy explained that the copies of the resolution adopted by TCLF seeking an early decision from the party high command on the separate Telangana state were sent to party president Sonia Gandhi, general secretary Ambika Soni and Pranab Mukherjee.

It was only a few days ago that APCC president M Satyanarayan Rao had declared that Telangana was not a campaign issue.

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