Final TRS offers support to UPA if Rahul Gandhi is prime minister

After spurning an alliance and merger with the Congress, TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday offered support to Congress-led UPA government with Rahul Gandhi as the prime minister. However, if that were not to happen, he said, the support would be extended to Third Front.

"I had to take decision on the merger and alliance as the head of a party. However, now I am extending a hand of friendship to the Congress," Rao told reporters here after a marathon meeting of his party MLAs and MPs. He also said he would not extend support to a BJP-led NDA government.

Rao said the TDP and Congress will be wiped out from both Telangana and Seemandhra regions and Jagan Mohan Reddy will form the next government in Seemandhra. "We will have cordial relations with the YSR Congress as Jagan is not an untouchable. He also belongs to the Telugu Jaati (Telugu speaking)," he said.

Rao also said that Congress will get less than 25 assembly seats in Telangana while his party would get over 60 seats, needed for absolute majority to form the government. "Congress will disappear from Andhra Pradesh after 2 pm on May 16, he said. "The TRS legislature party will elect a CM for Telangana. I am not very keen to hold the chief minister's post. All I am interested is in developing Telangana," he said.