Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is learnt to have decided to abstain from the 29th southern zonal council meeting to be held at Tirupati on Sunday.
The meeting, to be chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah, is supposed to be attended by chief ministers of five southern states – Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and Lt Governors of three union territories – Andaman and Nicobar, Puducherry and Lakshadweep.
Though there has been no official communication to the media from the chief minister’s office, sources said KCR has decided to stay away from the meeting and send home minister Md Mahmood Ali in his place.
However, senior officials of the state government including chief secretary and director general of police would be attending the meeting.
A section of the media is suspecting that KCR is not attending the meeting due to political reasons.
It may be mentioned that he has been attacking the Central government for the last few days and if he attends Amit Shah’s meeting, it would give scope for further political criticism from the opponents.
However, another section feels it may not be the correct reason as it is purely an official meeting concerned with the interests of the state.
“Maybe, KCR doesn’t want to attend the meeting hosted by his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. If he goes there, he may have to meet Jagan personally and that would trigger various political speculations,” another senior journalist said.
In any case, KCR’s absence, if it is confirmed, will add fuel to the fire between the two states and lead to more speculations!
