What's Centre for if it can't solve Telangana: KCR

Telangana Rashtra Samiti President K Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday lashed out at the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram for suggesting that people of Andhra Pradesh themselves should come up with a solution to the separate statehoood issue.

"What the Union home minister and the Central government is for, if people of the state are to resolve the dispute," Rao asked.

Addressing party workers at the TRS's executive meeting in Hyderabad on Saturday, KCR pointed out that Article 3 of the Constitution gives the power to the Central government to create new states. "Dr Ambedkar had clearly spelt it out in the Constitution without any ambiguity. The Centre need not even consult a state for creating a new state," he pointed out.

"I never expected that Chidambaram will come out with such a useless statement," KCR remarked, referring to the Union home minister's reply to the discussion on a calling attention motion in the Lok Sabha yesterday.

Asking Telangana people to "observe restraint", KCR said they knew how to achieve their goal of a separate state.