A day after a high-level committee on Telangana was given the task of examining the demands of a separate Telangana state as well as a united Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) slammed its terms of reference,the committee on Saturday held its first meeting in the national capital. The meeting chalked out certain plans,including visits to Hyderabad and other places. The committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice B N Srikrishna,which has been given time till December 31 to submit its report,will visit Hyderabad very soon and hold discussions with all stakeholders. We have chalked out certain plans. We propose to have interaction with all sections of the society as soon as possible. We will ascertain their views. We will also hold a series of meetings with different strata of people in the affected areas, Srikrishna told reporters after a three-hour long meeting in New Delhi. Member-Secretary V K Duggal said the committee would have its second meeting on February 25. In Hyderabad,Congress legislators hailing from Telangana vertically split on Saturday night into two groups with one section opposing the move to resign on the statehood issue from their posts while the other favouring it. In the end,however,only four MLAs and two MLCs decided to submit their resignations on Monday. At the end of a three-and-a-half-hour meeting at the MLAs quarters in Hyderabad,a handful of legislators,including former ministers R Damodar Reddy and Ch Mutyam Reddy,announced that they would indeed quit their posts in protest against the terms of reference set for the committee. Meanwhile,normal life was partially disrupted in the Telangana region due to a bandh called by students of Osmania University in protest against the terms of reference of the Srikrishna Committee on the statehood issue. Services of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation were disrupted at a few places.
