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In a show of unity on the demand for Telangana, all Congress Members of Parliament from the region on Wednesday night requested party chief Sonia Gandhi to accord a separate state to honour sentiments of the people there.
In a letter to Gandhi, 15 MPs including 11 from the Lok Sabha and four from the Rajya Sabha asked her to accord separate statehood for Telangana, considering the earlier promises made by the party, including in the poll manifesto. They claimed the Congress would 'easily' be able to form the government both in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana after carving out the separate state.
They said signatures of only two MPs from the region were not there, as S Jaipal Reddy cannot sign such a memorandum being a Union minister, while Rajya Sabha member G Sanjeeva Reddy was currently abroad.
The MPs said the Congress has 53 Members of Legislative Assembly, including three independents, out of the 119 legislators from Telangana. The Telanagana Rashtriya Samiti with 10 members has promised to merge with the Congress and with the support of the seven-member Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, the party will be able to form the government in Telangana.
Talking to reporters, the Telangana MPs claimed that nothing short of passing a resolution in the AP assembly for separate statehood could resolve the current crisis. Signatories to the memorandum included Madhu Goud Yakshi, Sarvey Satyanarayana, G Vivekananda, Ponnum Prabhakar, K R G Reddy, M Jagannath and V Hanumantha Rao.
"The people of Telangana have total faith and confidence in you. They have supported the Congress and the support will continue in view of our party's commitment for a separate statehood of Telangana," they said in the letter.