Sonia forgot her Telangana promise: Advani

Taking a dig at UPA chairperson and AICC president Sonia Gandhi, BJP senior leader LK Advani on Wednesday said that Sonia had made an empty promise for people of Telangana on granting statehood to their region.

“Sonia had promised a separate state for Telangana people during 2004 polls. Later, she forgot about her promise. Though Telangana people are agitating in a big way for the implementation of that promise, the centre and state pay no heed to this. The people of Telangana will teach a fitting lesson to the Congress in 2014 polls for its deceptive attitude,” he said.

Advani was addressing the gathering at the concluding day of the three-day “Telangana Poru Deeksha”, undertaken by BJP state president G Kishan Reddy at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Advani offered lemon water to Kishan after the latter completed three days of his fast.

Advani said there was no alternative to a separate state of Telangana. Bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh would pave the way for uniform development, he added.

He reiterated that the BJPled NDA would accord statehood to the Telangana region as soon as it attained power at the Centre.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said formation of a Telangana state was not very far. She wondered why TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao was still believing that the Congress would accord statehood to the Telangana region as it would never do that.

Kishan Reddy held the Congress responsible for the many suicides in Telangana and predicted doom for the party in the state.