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TRS executive panel endorse Rao's leadership

June 16, 2009 00:39 IST
The leadership of Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao, who came under attack over the party's defeat in recent elections, was on Monday endorsed by the state executive of the party at a meeting marred by the forced exit of a senior rebel leader from the office premises.

"About 210 out of the 220 members attended the state executive meeting. Those present and even those who could not attend have expressed their 100 per cent support to the leadership of Chandrasekhar Rao," TRS senior leader K Madhusudhan Achary told mediapersons in Hyderabad.

The state executive has ratified the suspension of the five rebel leaders on Sunday, he said. Playing down dissidence in the party, he said the activities of the 'four or five' rebel leaders "is nothing but a storm in the tea cup."

The party would soon constitute some committees to step up its agitation for Telangana statehood and to undertake struggles on people's issues, he said.

Meanwhile, high drama was witnessed at the Telangana Bhavan, the party headquarters, as party activists loyal to Chandrasekhar Rao forced out senior rebel leader Ravindra Nayak who came to attend the state executive meeting.

As Nayak, a former Member of Parliament and tribal leader, reached the Telangana Bhavan, he was forced by a number of activists to leave the premises and his shirt was torn in the melee.

Enraged over the "insult", Nayak spewed venom at Rao and vowed to make public his alleged acts of omission and commission. "I was a minister in 1970s when Rao was not even born politically. I have a great history as a tribal leader from Telangana. I am insulted today. Rao is an arrogant forward caste leader with a feudal mindset. How can he realise separate Telangana?" Nayak remarked.

"We have a list of illegal acts of Rao. We will try to make it public. I will expose him in the court of Telangana people," he said. "I was given a ticket in the 2004 elections only after I sold a piece of land I owned," Nayak alleged.

Nayak also lodged a complaint over the incident with the Banjara Hills police station under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Atrocities against SC/STs Act against 10-12 people and also those who instigated them, police said.

A counter police case was lodged against Nayak by a leader of TRS' student wing who alleged the former MP had hurled casteist remarks at him. Senior TRS leader N Narasimha Reddy, however, told media persons later in the evening that Nayak has expressed his readiness to withdraw the police case he lodged against TRS leaders.

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