Warangal town came to a standstill as all roads leading to the venue were choked with vehicles. There was a 10km-long jam on roads connecting Warangal to neighbouring districts.
A public meeting of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in this Andhra Pradesh town on Thursday night demanded that the central government table a bill in the budget session of Parliament to carve out a separate Telangana state.
A resolution adopted at the meeting, which drew a sea of humanity, urged the government to abide by its December 9, 2009, statement on Telangana.
"This meeting demands the government of India to table the bill in the budget session of Parliament in February," said the statement read out by TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao.
On December 9 last year, following an 11-day hunger strike by Rao, Union home minister P Chidambaram had announced the initiation of the process to create the state of Telangana.
A large crowd descended on this town for the TRS public meeting, which was expected to announce the roadmap for achieving the separate state.
The town came to a standstill as all roads leading to the venue were choked with vehicles. There was a 10km-long traffic jam on the roads connecting Warangal to neighbouring districts and several TRS leaders were among those stranded.
Thousands of people gathered at a 1,000-acre open ground for the public meeting to mark the completion of one year of the central government's statement on the formation of a separate Telangana.
TRS leaders claimed that 2.5 million people from all 10 districts of Telangana, including Hyderabad, had turned out for the meeting, said to be the first of its kind in the country.
It was a massive show of strength by the TRS ahead of the BN Srikrishna Committee's report to the central government on the demand for a separate Telangana state.
The five-member panel headed by former Supreme Court justice Srikrishna is to submit its report before December 31.
Swami Agnivesh, TRS ideologue Jayashankar, Telangana Joint Action Committee chairman M Kodandaram, TRS MP and former actress Vijayashanti, Jamaat-e-Islami chief of the Andhra Pradesh and Orissa unit Malik Motassim Khan, leaders of students, trade unions, and women's organisations were among the prominent speakers.
The public meeting was scheduled to be held on December 9 but had to be postponed owing to heavy rains in the state.
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