Aruna leaves for Delhi to press for decision on Telangana

After resorting to ‘war of letters’, now the camps of chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and that of the Congress MPs from the Telangana region have started ‘Delhi tours’ for one-upmanship on the issue of state bifurcation as well as to check-mate each other.  

Giving credence to this argument, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy’s close aide and information minister DK Aruna on Monday left for the national capital along with the elected representatives of the Congress from her native Mahbubnagar district to meet the AICC top brass over the Telangana issue.

Before taking the flight to Delhi, Aruna said that she was leading the delegation to Delhi to persuade the Congress high command to take a positive decision on the Telangana issue at the earliest.  She said that her delegation would stay in Delhi for three days and try meeting all the AICC functionaries so as to apprise them of the prevailing political situation in the Telangana region in the wake of Telangana March.

However, Aruna is said to have undertaken this ‘yatra’ only to checkmate deputy chief minister Damodara Rajanarasimha and panchayat raj minister K Jana Reddy, who are using the Telangana issue only to corner chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy with the help of Congress MPs from the region.

As both Rajanarasimha and Jana Reddy have become a pain in the neck for the chief minister with critical statements on the separate state issue, the chief minister’s followers like DK Aruna have started making moves to check-mate the two senior leaders from the region.

Though Aruna is claiming that she has not undertaken Delhi Yatra at the behest of chief minister Kiran Reddy, the timing of her Delhi tour at a time when Rajanarasimha and Jana Reddy are planning to lead a delegation of Congress leaders from Telangana region to the national capital, gives  enough ammunition for the detractors of the chief minister.

Meanwhile, Telangana Congress MPs -- Ponnam Prabhakar, Manda Jagannadham, Madhu Yashki Goud, Gutta Sukhender Reddy, Siricilla Rajaiah, G Vivekanand and K Rajagopal Reddy-- who wrote a letter to Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar seeking her permission to move a privilege motion against the chief minister for not giving them an audience on the day of the Telangana March, are also planning to take up Delhi tour to pursue this issue.