Forty-five Congress legislators, including ministers, belonging to the Telangana region on Thursday requested Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy to prevail upon the party high command for setting up the second States Reorganisation Commission to go into the demand for separate Telangana state.
They also urged the chief minister to take up the revival of regional development board for Telangana, announce a special package for expediting the development of this backward region and ensure effective implementation of GOMs 610 which provides for repatriation of non-local government employees working in Telangana to their native regions.
"We, the Congress legislators' wing of Telangana region, would like to bring to your notice that in the 11th (previous) Assembly, all the Congress MLAs from the region requested Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the high command for the formation of separate Telangana state," the ministers and MLAs said in their memorandum.
They said that the issue was highlighted in the Congress election manifesto, which called for setting up of the second SRC, which was also reiterated by the Congress Working Committee. Much time has elapsed without any concrete steps being taken in this regard.
"We, therefore, request you to use your good offices to impress upon the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the high command to appoint the second SRC for the formation of Telangana state as soon as possible," the Congress members urged the chief minister.
In the meantime, they requested the chief minister to consider revival of the Telangana regional committee immediately for special focus on developmental activities in Telangana region. They also urged the chief minister to ensure that all the pending irrigation projects in Telangana region are expedited on a war-footing and completed on schedule.
The Congress members sought a special package fund of Rs 10,000 crore for taking up specially designed and focused developmental activities for the upliftment of backward Telangana. They wanted the chief minister to expedite the implementation of GOMs 610 to ensure that the aspirations of the people of Telangana are fulfilled immediately.
The signatories to the memorandum included all the nine ministers from the region and 36 out of the 42 Congress MLAs from the region.
Six MLAs did not sign the memorandum either because they did not concur with their colleagues or were not available in the city.
