Hyderabad:
K Chandrasekhar Rao, the man who fronted the campaign for a new southern state of Telangana, is expected to spurn the Congress which has been angling for a merger with his party ahead of the national election, due by May.
Mr Rao, 60, heads the Telangana Rashtra Samithi or TRS. It was his 11-day fast in 2009 that gave new life to the movement seeking the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and the carving out of the Telangana region as its own state.
Seeking to profit in the national election, the Congress recently managed to push through the law that makes Telangana the country's 29th state. Sources say that the party, which privately considers Mr Rao an unreliable ally, wanted to confirm a merger immediately.
But last week, senior union minister Jairam Ramesh conceded that the reorganization of Andhra Pradesh will not take place before the election. Mr Rao's party believes that deprives him of the dividends for a cause he has brought to fruition.
Sources also say that the Congress refused to guarantee that if the parties merged, Mr Rao would be made the chief minister of the new Telangana state.
"Rushing into it (remapping Telangana) would be a recipe for disaster," said Mr Ramesh last week, adding that three months are needed to finalize the division of resources between Telangana and the regions of Seemandhra that will form the down-sized Andhra Pradesh.
Mr Rao is also reportedly upset with the fact that two prominent rebels from his party were accepted last week by the Congress as members. Senior leaders close to him say that the TRS will benefit from maintaining its own identity in the election, and that they prefer to examine options for alliances after the results are known.
The Congress last week lost another important regional ally - Ram Vilas Paswan in Bihar. He decided to side with the BJP in the coalition it anchors, the National Democratic Alliance or NDA.