Cong buys time till budget, BJP pacifies TRS

A day after the announcement of a Joint Parliamentary Committee in 2G scam case, the Lok Sabha had to be adjourned thrice on Wednesday over the Telangana statehood demand.

A day after the announcement of a Joint Parliamentary Committee in 2G scam case, the Lok Sabha had to be adjourned thrice on Wednesday over the Telangana statehood demand.

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Even as the two TRS members TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao and M Vijaya Shanti entered the well, the embarrassment for UPA was the 11 Congress MPs from Telangana who kept raising slogans demanding a separate state. On Monday, the Congress MPs had displayed pro-Telangana banners in the joint session of the house.

Realising the precariousness of the situation, Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and UPA chairperson's policial secretary Ahmed Patel convened a meeting with the party MPs which yielded the result. The Telangana Congress MPs attended the afternoon session but did not raise any protest.

"We were requested by Mukherjee to keep restraint till the budget is submitted, after which they said the issue would be looked into. As members of the ruling side, we agreed to the same," G Sukender Reddy, Congress MP said.

Sources said that the finance minister had to threaten that he would not submit the budget, if the MPs continued the protest. The group also met PM Manmohan Singh where the MPs also demanded recall of governor E S L Narasimhan.

Even Rao, who did not budge from the well, did not make appearance when house reconvened at 2 pm. It is understood that BJP leader Suhsma Swaraj, who supported the TRS MPs, convinced them not to protest further.

In reaction to their Telangana counterparts, the MPs from Seema-Andhra were seen distributing pamphlets in the house where they listed the ill-effects of bifurcation.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh CM Kiran Reddy is arriving on Thursday. Telangana is going through a 48-hour bandh.