Persuasive skills of the entire brass of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was not enough to tame the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). After its demand for an immediate decision on the formation of a Telengana state was turned down by the Congress,TRS ministers K. Chandrashekhar Rao and A. Narendra resigned from the Union ministry today.Coming down heavily on the Congress after sending his resignation, K.C. Rao said “Congress is a deceitful party that does not have the courage to keep its words. It has betrayed the people of Telengana. The Congress will pay the price for the politics of deception that it practices. It will be wiped out not only from Telengana, but the entire Andhra,” said Rao.“The resignations were delivered at the Prime Minister’s Office. We are waiting for its acceptance,” he said. Rao said he would start an agitation again and gain popular support for the formation of a separate state. The TRS leader said “he felt sad and betrayed” by the behaviour of the Congress.Chadrashekhar Rao will start a fast unto death at Jantar Mantar on Wednesday.As part of a last ditch effort to persuade the TRS leaders to continue in the government, UPA leaders met them in the morning and followed it up with a marathon meeting with the Left leaders. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP leader Sharad Pawar, RJD leader Lalu Yadav, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury and CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta talked to KCR through the day. Congress persisted with its stand that Telengana could not be achieved in the present situation because several of the supporting parties are opposed to it — Samajwadi Party, BSP and CPM are not in favour of carving out smaller states. Congress interlocutors Pranab Mukherjee and Ahmad Patel told KCR that he should wait patiently till a consensus could be reached. They also suggested that the UPA as a whole could commit more resources and energy for the development of Telengana region. The Congress line was supported by all other allies. RJD’s Raghuvansh Prasad advised KCR to “continue with the cause from within the UPA,” and take credit for the development programmes that could be unveiled for the region. KCR left the meeting at the Parliament House around 3 p.m. with a promise to get back after consutling his MLAs — which he never did. The resignation letters were sent to the PMO.
