Seemandhra agitation is artificial: Shankar Rao

Former minister Dr P Shankar Rao on Saturday accused the Seemandhra leaders of trying to provoke the people in their region by engineering fake agitation on the Telangana decision announced by the Congress Working Committee.

Talking to reporters at the Congress Legislature Party office here, Shankar Rao said that the Telangana decision was not instant. The Centre announced a decision in favour of Telangana on December 9, 2009, and there several rounds of discussions were held on the issue since then. He said there was no agitation or protest anywhere in Seemandhra region since 2009. However, some Seemandhra leaders started organising fake protests after the CWC made its announcement.

Shankar Rao said that the opposition parties were trying to gain political mileage out of the situation. He remined that all leaders including TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu gave their consent for formation of Telangana.

The former minister also welcomed the High Power Committee proposed to be constituted by the Center. Further, he reiterated his demand that Telangana martyrs be given the status of freedom fighters.  He also slammed Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy for his "confused" behaviour on the statehood issue.

When asked about different claims on Hyderabad, he said that the city was developed by Nizams and not by the Seemandhra rulers as being claimed.