HYDERABAD: Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member V Hanumantha Rao on Sunday urged the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre to reveal the contents of the secretive Chapter-VIII of the Srikrishna Committee’s report on Telangana.Talking with reporters here, he said that an English news weekly has placed the contents of the controversial chapter on its website. According to it, the committee headed by Justice Srikrishna, in its report, had suggested to the government on the ways of media and political management to suppress the Telangana movement and also to adopt every method to avoid giving finality to any discussions to drag on the matter until the agitation was totally brought under control, he alleged.Rao said he would raise the Chapter-VIII issue with Union finance minister and Congress core committee member Pranab Mukherjee at a meeting Telangana Congress MPs will hold with him in New Delhi on June 15. It was important for people to know whether the website report was true or not, he said and recalled that Justice L Narsimha Reddy of the High Court had made caustic remarks on the chapter after going through its contents. In the wake of Centre’s appeal for keeping the issue under wraps, the chapter has been placed before the chief justice in a sealed cover.“We (T Congress leaders) have to tour our constituencies and are answerable to people. Seemandhra people are also seeking separation. Only some of their leaders are creating hurdles. Let us separate like brothers and progress independently.” Replying to a query, Rao said Union minister S Jaipal Reddy would have the blessings of Telangana martyrs if he came out in support of the statehood demand. Jaipal Reddy had claimed earlier that he had taken the initiative to convince the Centre into making the statement by Chidambaram on Telangana on December 9, 2009. It was not right for him (Jaipal) now to say now that he had no role behind it. “We (Congress T MPs) want Jaipal Reddy to attend the meeting with Pranab Mukherjee on June 15. Instead of resigning from Parliament, we want to keep pressing the Centre on the Telangana issue,” he declared.Answering another query, he brushed aside Seemandhra leaders’ argument that credit would go to TRS if the Congress agreed to state’s bifurcation. “On the other hand, KCR will have to close down his shop once Telangana state is formed and people will stand solidly behind the Congress for granting statehood to the region.’’ He said it was not right for Telangana JAC and TRS to obstruct programmes being organised by others (Telangana TDP) for the regional cause. “We are not frightened by deadlines put by the JAC. Instead, the deadlines will affect the Telangana movement,” he remarked.Rao made it clear that he had no differences with new PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana, and assured to participate in all the programmes to be organised by him. “My absence from Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday during Botcha’s assumption of charge was not deliberate. I was preoccupied with some other work,” he claimed.
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