The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday asked the State Government not to take the Telangana agitation lightly.
Talking to reporters, former Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreyya said that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar was misleading the Centre about the Telangana agitation. "He is treating the agitation as a regular protest without realising its intensity and the sentiments involved," he said. Dattatreyya warned that Kiran Kumar Reddy would meet a similar fate like K Rosaiah who was forced to step down before the completion of his term. He reiterated that the BJP and other constituents of National Democratic Alliance would support the Telangana Bill if the Congress led UPA Government introduces the same in the Parliament.
BJP State President G Kishan Reddy said that the general strike was the result of failure of both state and central government to respond to the earlier agitations organised demanding statehood for Telangana region. Announcing his party's complete support, he said that the general strike would not be confined to government employees and all sections of the society in Telangana region would bring the administration to a halt.
Accusing the Congress and TDP leaders from the region of adopting a dual stand on the Telangana issue, he asked them to mend ways or face consequences. He asked the TDP MLAs to stage protests in front of their party president N Chandrababu Naidu's residence or before the NTR Trust Bhavan, if they were really serious about the issue. He said it was due to the indifferent attitude of both Congress and TDP leaders that hundreds of youth from the region committed suicide.
Earlier, the BJP took out a massive rally from Haca Bhavan to Gun Park with the activists raising slogans demanding statehood for Telangana.