People including elected representatives from various villages in Nanded district are demanding their state government to either implement the welfare schemes of Telangana or allow their villages to be merged with the Telugu state.
Affiliated to several political parties, they also decided to contest the forthcoming Assembly elections with this demand. They called on Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao here and sought his support for their agitation.
They said they are ready to contest the polls on the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) tickets.
Those who met the TRS chief include leaders from Nalgaon, Bhokar, Degloor, Kinwat and Hathgaon Assembly segments in Nanded district bordering Telangana. The delegation was led by sarpanch of Babli, Babu Rao Ganapath Rao Kadam, who is leading the movement for merging the villages with Telangana, according to Chief Minister's Office.
The Chief Minister said besides people from five Assembly segments from Nanded district, people from Bhiwandi, Sholapur, and Rajara are also seeking TRS tickets. He said a decision would be taken on this shortly.
KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said that the demand for the implementation of welfare schemes like in Telangana is rational and hoped that the Maharashtra government would accede to the demand.
Those who met the Chief Minister said the conditions in their villages are very different compared to Telangana. They lauded the schemes being implemented in Telangana like financial assistance to farmers, social security pension and the financial help for marriage of poor girls.
The leaders from Nanded district said that in the past, 40 villages in the Dharmabad taluk passed a resolution demanding that their villages be merged with Telangana.
Following this, the Maharashtra government had declared Rs 40 crore grant for these villages but so far not a single rupee has been released.
They said they will soon come with leaders from Congress, BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP to meet KCR.
( With inputs from IANS )