Meanwhile, TRS MLA and Rao's son K T Rama Rao hit out at Congress for "poaching" its leaders, referring to MLA G Arvind Reddy and expelled MP Vijayshanti joining the national party over the weekend.
"We always maintained that after the passage of the bill we will explore the possibility of a working association with Congress. What form that would manifest itself is something we said we will be able to throw light on after the passage of the bill," Rama Rao said.
"But now we have seen certain things happening, which we don't approve of. It is certainly in bad taste with the Congress party, while talking to us about a merger or an alliance, at the same time they go about poaching our sitting MLA Aravind Reddy... They also admit one of our expelled MPs.
"Therefore, this is something the Congress leadership needs to understand that if you want to be friends with TRS, you cannot be picking up people from TRS and expect us to be friends also," Rama Rao said.
"There is certainly a line that you have to draw and which certainly has been breached as far as I understand. Secondly, there has to be mutual trust for any political pact to work. Unfortunately, the way Congress behaved so far, I don't see an element of respect towards TRS. We certainly do not appreciate the Congress doing this," he said.
