Hyderabad, Jan 25 (IANS) With pressure mounting on them to quit, all Telangana MPs and legislators from Andhra Pradesh’s ruling Congress Monday decided to go to New Delhi to lobby with the party leadership for the cause of a separate state.
With the Jan 28 deadline set by the all-party Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Telangana only three days away, the Congress leaders, including state ministers, held a meeting here to chalk out their course of action.

While stating that they were ready for any sacrifice for the cause of a separate Telangana state, the leaders felt it was not proper to set any deadline and that they should hold an “interaction” with the party leadership.

Minister D.K. Aruna told reporters after the meeting that senior leader and Rajya Sabha member K. Keshava Rao would lead them during their visit to New Delhi.

Keshava Rao, however, said it was not a delegation and it would not be led by anybody.

“All MPs and MLAs from Telangana are agitated over the delay in initiating the process for formation of Telangana state and they are ready for any sacrifice. The unanimous opinion at the meeting was that people and the cause of Telangana are more important than any post,” he said.

“The participants felt that we all should go to Delhi and urge the centre to make an announcement as peace is prevailing in the state. Since the centre had called the meeting on the issue on Jan 5, they all want to know from the centre what the next step would be.”

The Congress MPs and legislators, however, stopped short of threatening to resign over the issue. Keshava Rao said since the Telangana state would be delivered by the party and the party-led government, the meeting felt the need to “interact” with them.

The politicians’ Joint Action Committee (JAC), which also includes the Congress party, has set Jan 28 as the deadline for the central government to make an announcement on initiating the process for formation of Telangana state with a time-bound programme. It has decided that if New Delhi failed to make an announcement, all elected representatives from the region would resign.

While the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and other constituents of JAC are of the view that a constitutional crisis alone could force the central government to make an announcement, ruling party leaders are against creating problems for their own government.