New Delhi: Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on Tuesday pulled out of the UPA Government. In a statement, it said that the Congress has "let down the people of Telengana".
The TRS, which had five members in the Lok Sabha, has decided to go for an indefinite strike from Wednesday.
"Congress accussed us of being an agent of TDP," party sources said.
Earlier in the day, TRS Chief and Union Labour Minister K Chandrasekara Rao and his party colleague in the UPA government A Narendra quit the Union Cabinet.
However, the withdrawl of support may not not affect the stability of the Congress-led coalition, which enjoys the support of about 330 members in the 545-member Lok Sabha.
The TRS has been having an uneasy relationship with the Congress, especially in Andhra Pradesh, where it has already pulled out of the coalition government and withdrew its support to the Rajasekhara Reddy government.
Rao met Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads a sub-committee of the coalition on the demand for separate Telengana, and during the interaction the Left parties made clear their strong opposition to the TRS demand.
The TRS has also been unhappy that the UPA coalition had not not taken any concrete steps in implementation of his demand and had last week set a deadline of tonight for quitting the government.
The letters of resignation of the two ministers were sent across to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, TRS sources said.
The decision to quit comes as a last minute effort to sort out the issue arising out of his demand for separate Telengana state within the coalition failed.
While addressing a meeting in Hyderabad on Sunday, N Chandrababu Naidu charged that Chandrashekhar Rao and A Narendra were only keen on "winning either from Assembly or Parliament segment".
The Telangana movement was launched by Channa Reddy over 30 years ago. However, Naidu claimed that Reddy had merged with the Congress and diluted the cause.
TRS, which fought the 2004 Parliament and Assembly elections pressing the demand for a separate Telengana state, is upset that there has been no no progress on the issue.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)




Click to play video
















