The maverick Telangana Congress leader Dr P Shankar Rao desperately wants to be in the media spotlight.
With his bizarre statements and sweeping charges against his own party leaders, he always manages to attract media attention. He has now taken his loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family to new level by demanding that the Telangana state should be named after the Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
"I demand that Telangana be named after Madam Sonia Gandhi," he said.
Justifying his demand, Shankar Rao, who Secunderabad Cantonment constituency in the Assembly, said that Sonia was solely responsible for granting statehood for the region. "She has kept up her promise made to the people of Telangana. And, she did it despite enormous amount of pressure mounted by the Seemandhra lobby to scuttle the formation of Telangana state," he said.
His statement might sound as a crass demonstration of sycophancy, Shankar Rao's statement always border on weirdness.
Making a scathing attack on the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy for opposing bifurcation of the state, he likened Kiran to mythological character "Bhasmasura" who destroys everything that his hands lay on.
"We will throw Kiran's flexiboard into Hussain Sagar lake," he roared.
Shankar Rao has been causing major embarrassment to the party by taking the senior leaders like Chief Minister, former Home Minister Sabita Indra Reddy and former DGP V Dinesh Reddy.
