Sensing an opportunity to promote himself as the new spearhead of the separate Telangana movement after the failure of the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) in last month’s bypolls, Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) leader T Devender Goud quit the party on Monday accusing it of being ‘anti-Telangana’. His resignation came as a big jolt and the TDP, caught unawares, plunged into a crisis as Chandrababu Naidu is preparing the party for next year’s general elections with a ‘unified Andhra for development’ as the poll plank.The politician is now expected to launch the Telangana Aikya Vedika, this week—a party with the agenda of a separate Telangana state, which may upstage the TRS and its president K Chandrasekhara Rao. Goud, an MLA from Medchal, was effectively the second-in-command in the TDP as a veteran politburo member and deputy leader of the TDP legislature party in the AP Assembly. In his three-page resignation letter to the TDP president, Goud criticised him and the party for taking an anti-Telangana stand. “Instead of supporting the cause of a separate state, the party is making a unified Andhra its poll plank. The TDP has always dithered on taking a stand on Telangana. It does not go down well with senior leaders who since years have been nurturing the hope of a separate state,” Goud said. He also questioned Naidu’s move to set up a core committee to examine the Telangana issue. “It is a clever ploy to delay taking any decision or stand on the issue. Once the 2009 elections are over, the issue will be forgotten without any result,” he asserted.“I will make my future political plans clear to everyone in a few days,” Goud said on Tuesday. “If things fall into place, we may also press for the formation of a joint forum for all Telangana parties,” he added, but did not confirm if the TRS, BJP or others might be involved.While Naidu dismissed Goud’s move as a hasty decision, political observers felt the latter timed his resignation perfectly. “KCR is fighting to retain his hold on the TRS. After the TRS’s poor performance in the bypolls, KCR can no longer claim to be the leader of the statehood movement. While other leaders in the TRS are trying to take control, Goud has upstaged them all by resigning from TDP in favour of a new pro-Telangana party which may now take TRS’ place to exploit the Telangana sentiment,” said political analyst V I Rao.However, TDP supporters said there was more to Goud’s resignation—although he was involved in all major decision-making in the party, he was slowly sidelined by Naidu after he took out a rally in February 2006 in support of the Pranhita-Chevella project. In fact, every time Goud made a pro-Telangana remark, Naidu would force him to issue a clarification the next day.On Tuesday, the TDP engaged in a damage-control exercise, with politburo member Yerram Naidu convening meetings to contain the turmoil within the party.Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) termed Goud's resignation as an "internal issue' of TDP. APCC president D Srinivas told mediapersons here that the Congress has taken up the Telangana cause on priority basis and the high command is seized upon the matter.
