Hyderabad: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will come to the city on Wednesday for the first time after Telangana state was formed on June 2, 2014. She had last addressed a meeting at Karimnagar during the 2014 elections.
Mrs Gandhi is widely acknowledged to have been instrumental in getting statehood for Telangana state. TRS president and caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had also stated this in the first Assembly session of the new state on June 13, 2014. Mr Rao, while thanking Mrs Gandhi for her support to form TS, said, “It was due to Sonia Gandhi’s initiative that the dream of the people of Telangana came true.” I am placing my thanks to Sonia Gandhi on record in the first session of the Telangana Assembly.”
Mr Rao later turned a bitter rival of the Congress.
Telangana Congress leaders are planning to felicitate Mrs Gandhi on her first visit to the state on Friday at the public meeting to be held at Medchal and thank her for granting statehood.
In her Karimnagar meeting on April 15, 2014, Mrs Gandhi had said, “There is no doubt that without the Congress, the formation of Telangana state could not have been realised. It was only the Congress which decided to form a separate state of Telangana, it was only the Congress which prepared the Bill and it was only the Congress which got it passed in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.”
Mrs Gandhi had also said, “The TRS had no role in drafting the Bill and passing the Bill.” She had said: “Now the era of agitation has ended; now the time is to run a responsible government in the state.”
TS Congress leaders are of the opinion that Mrs Gandhi’s campaign would create a positive atmosphere for the party and its Mahakutami allies.
TPCC treasurer Guduru Narayana Reddy said, “The people of Telangana know that it is Sonia Gandhi who fulfilled their decades-long dream by giving statehood to Telangana. Sonia Gandhi’s campaign will ensure the victory of the Mahakutami.”
