Telangana JAC to lay siege to NHs in T region

With the struggle for Telangana entering a decisive stage, an emergency meeting of the steering committee of Telangana political JAC on Tuesday decided to intensify the movement by laying siege to all national highways that pass through the region in the first week of August.

Political JAC chairman M Kodandaram Reddy said that the steering committee had decided to intensify the movement further by carrying out various programmes to build pressure on the Centre for introduction of Telangana Bill during the monsoon session of Parliament, which begins on August 1.

The siege in Telangana region would affect traffic on NH-9 (from Zaheerabad- Hyderabad- Kodad-Vijayawada), NH-7 (from Adilabad- Hyderabad- Mahabubnagar-Kurnool), NH-16 (Nizamabad-Jagdalpur), NH-202 ( Hyderabad to Bhopalpatnam in Chhattisgarh) and Rajiv Rahadari (Hyderabad-Karimnagar). NH-7 is the longest national highway that starts in Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) and ends in Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu), covering 2,369 km.

However, the meeting could not arrive at a consensus on the duration of the siege. Some of them wanted it to be for 78 hours, while others wanted it for 48 hours. "The duration of the siege will be announced later," JAC sources said.

The JAC chairman said before laying siege to national highways passing through the region, they had decided to carry out funeral processions of Telangana leaders who were yet to resign from their posts on July 22. Elected representatives who did not give in to the Telangana political JAC's pressure include deputy chief minister D Raja Narasimha, ministers M Mukesh Goud and Danam Nagendar, legislators Marri Shashidhar Reddy and T Jayaprakash Reddy.

On July 25, Telangana activists would remove the name Andhra Pradesh from all sign boards across the region and repaint\ replace it with the word Telangana, he said.

The meeting also decided to target the economic and business interests of Seemandhra leaders if they did not stop spreading canards in Delhi about the Telangana movement.

The TJAC chairman said a delegation of non-politicians (intellectuals, poets, social workers, artists and academicians) would visit Delhi in the first week of August and call on all important national leaders in UPA as well as NDA to tell them about the intensity of the movement and the necessity for a separate state.

Nearly 86 employee associations have already expressed their desire to participate in the proposed people's strike beginning August 1, to bring pressure on the Centre to concede Telangana state.