With an eye on Telangana, Gaddar to launch new party

Balladeer and folk artist Gummadi Vithal Rao, better known as Gaddar, on Sunday announced a new party, Telangana Praja Front. It will be formally launched on October 9 in Hyderabad.

The Front, which is expected to try to wrest control of the Telangana movement, is not just a political party, Gaddar said.

“Time and again it has been proved that only people’s movements succeed, not political parties. We are not going to wait for Srikrishna Committee to submit its report. We are going back to the people to start the movement again as political parties have never achieved such objectives,” he said, in an apparent reference to TRS.

The Front, sources said, took shape after a meeting of Backward Class leaders and trade and employee unions of Telangana, who though active in the Telangana movement have kept away from the TRS. It plans to build a constituency by rallying Dalits, Backward Classes and students.

Mean while, TRS party senior leaders like Nayani Narasimha Reddy see this move as to create confusion among the people in the region and dilute the T movement.

The TDP leaders, however, are learnt to have got the nod from party president N Chandrababu Naidu to extend their support to Gaddar.

The TDP, which proposes to hold a dharna in front of the house of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on October 20, will invite all the parties in the region including Gaddar.

However, after launching a new outfit, Gaddar said his party was not against anyone nor does it aims to counter TRS. According to him, his party would try to bring pressure on the Centre to bring a bill in the parliament for creation of separate Telangana state.