JAC sets Telangana deadline by June 25

Demanding that Centre make an announcement of formation of Telangana state by June 25, the Telangana political Joint Action Committee on Thursday said the members of Parliament and members of legislative assembly of the ruling Congress and opposition Telugu Desam Party should resign if this did not happen.

"Common people in Telangana now say that Congress and Telugu Desam MLAs and MPs have to quit their posts. Teloangana Rashtra Samiti has done its best. They (Congress-TDP legislators) have the responsibility to trigger a Constitutional crisis to achieve separate Telangana," JAC Convener M Kodandaram told mediapersons.

If they failed to resign, Telangana supporters should stop co-operating with them, he said. He was speaking after a meeting of the JAC, attended by TRS President K Chandrasekhar Rao, representatives of then Bharatiya Janata Party, and others.

A resolution was passed, demanding that a bill for formation of Telangana state be introduced in the next session of Parliament. Kodandaram announced that a programme called 'Hyderabad cooks on roads' would be held on June 19, in which all the Telangana supporters would be asked to sit on the roads and cook their food.

He called upon people to stop the Congress and TDP MLAs and MPs on their ways, and question them about their commitment for Telangana from June 13 onwards, when they step out for farmers' conventions and visits to schools.

Asked about the reported comments of Union minister Gulam Nabi Azad, in-charge of Congress affairs in Andhra Pradesh, that Telangana issue was "complex and critical", Chandrasekhar Rao said they would make it "critical" now, by intensifying the agitation.