Hyderabad, May 23: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu fired his first salvo against the Telangana Rashtra Samiti by using the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi as weapon.

The MRPS’s decision to launch a separate movement for Telangana, which would be announced by its leader Manda Krishna Madiga on Thursday, was seen as part of Naidu’s strategy to divert the attention of the separatist movement from the “upper castes” representative K Chandrasekhar Rao to that of “oppressed” castes.

“We (oppressed castes) are the worst hit due to backwardness of Telangana. We don’t want to shoulder the upper castes’ flag, instead we will raise our own voice for our well being,” S Devaiah Madiga, a senior MRPS leader and close confidant of Krishna Madiga told Deccan Chronicle.

The MRPS, which spearheaded the movement a few years ago for classification of the Scheduled Castes, had built up a considerable cadre base during the movement. Its recent appeal against holding Panchayat elections in the High Court was seen as the Chief Minister playing yet another trump card to delay the elections.

The decision to project Krishna Madiga as the new protagonist of separate Telangana was believed to have been taken after prolonged discussions between Home Minister T Devender Goud and MRPS senior leaders including Krishna Madiga and his close confidant S Devaiah Madiga.

Sources said the Home Minister conveyed his leader’s strategy to the MRPS leaders at a recent meeting held in his chambers. The MRPS leaders were also said to have been in touch with the Chief Minister. “The idea behind promoting Krishna Madiga is to prevent the possible exodus of low rung cadre belonging to pro-MRPS scheduled castes and scheduled tribes,” sources said.

Significantly, the MRPS appears to have fixed a sole agenda of targetting Chandrasekhar Rao, if Devaiah Madiga’s observations on the on-going movement are any indication. “We don’t want that the leadership of separate Telangana state again would go to “reddlu” and “doralu” ( read as Velama Doras caste to which Chandrasekhar Rao belong to), who have been oppressing us since Nizam period,” Devaiah said.

Taking exception to Chandrasekhar’s newly launched movement, the MRPS leader, in a sarcastic tone, said the former had realised the injustice to the region only after he was stripped of his cabinet post and given a rather “insignificant” post of deputy speaker. “Rao could not bear the fact that a Dalit woman (read as Pratibha Bharati) was elevated to a higher position to him,” he added.

Dubbing Rao as power monger, the MRPS leader said the organisation had no belief in the former’s promise of extending 51 per cent of reservations to backward classes and minorities.