Protests resumed in August, when K. Chandrashekar Rao gave the centre[clarification needed] a two-week deadline to declare statehood.
[5][6] In Mahbubnagar (part of the parliamentary constituency represented by Rao, known as KCR), TRS lost to TJAC partner BJP by 1,897 votes.
[8] In response to the BJP's victory, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) legislative assembly leader Akbaruddin Owaisi said that the result vindicated his party's stand on Telangana.
[24] None of the major parties supporting a Telangana state produced accurate data to substantiate their claims of the number of suicides.
Seventeen MLAs (including the MLA from Parkal) and one MP were disqualified after they supported the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP).
TRS leaders unhappy with the slim majority blamed it on the split of pro-Telangana votes and the electoral symbol – auto and hat – of some independents, which they said resembled theirs (a car).
[36] The BJP also attributed their defeat to YSRCP and TRS' wooing of voters with gold coins, liquor and cotton seeds.
[38] TRS leader Vinod Kumar said that all the votes cast in Parkal favoured Telangana, and reiterated that the Congress must realise that it was losing its base in the state.
[42] In an interview after Eid, KCR said that Sonia Gandhi had always favoured Telangana and the central government would call his party for discussions in "few weeks or so".
[44] After 23 days in the capital, KCR returned to Hyderabad hoping that a final round of talks with the Congress leadership would be held soon on the issue.
[47] The Hindu reported on 1 September that the BJP and the Telangana people wanted the issue resolved as soon as possible, since delays and long-lasting protests had cost the region dearly.
BJP state-unit president Kishan Reddy announced that he would lead a three-day hunger strike at Delhi's Jantar Mantar in support of statehood.
[49] That month, incoming home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said that the Telangana demand must be handled carefully since similarly carved smaller states had increased Naxalite problems.
A home guard and constable were injured by the protesters, and Telangana United Front (TUF) pamphlets were found at the site.
[54] Anticipating violence and property damage,[55] police initially denied permission for the march (which was scheduled near Ganesh Nimmajjan on 29 September and the UN biodiversity conference,[56] which began on 1 October).
[61] He was later gheraoed by pro-Telangana activists in his Lok Sabha constituency of Nizamabad, who called him the "Telangana Betrayer" and demanded that he resign to demonstrate his commitment to the issue.
[63] Prominent Telangana residents wrote a letter to the president of India asking permission for the march and expressed concern that preventive detention of activists would lead to more violence by protestors.
[64] On 28 September, after long discussions between TJAC leaders and ministers from the Telangana region, the state government (ignoring warnings about a possible breakdown in law and order) gave permission for the march.
The TJAC leaders promised the government in writing that the demonstration would be conducted in a peaceful, "Gandhian" manner from 3 to 7 pm on 30 September on Necklace Road, at the edge of the Hussain Sagar lake.
Congress MPs from Telangana were arrested in front of the chief minister's office when they staged a dharna because they had been forbidden to meet with him about the detention of party supporters, who were prevented from demonstrating.
[75] All Telugu news channels covering the march were blocked by police, apparently to prevent the spread of violence to other parts of the city.
[77] Police first used water cannons and later lobbed tear gas shells on the crowd and on to the stage to force the protestors to leave the venue.
Seeing a helicopter circle over the venue several times, some protestors speculated that the government seeded the clouds to produce heavy rain.
[79] The TJAC declared a bandh for the next two days, vowing to launch a region-wide hunger strike[80] and announcing that the agitation would take a more-serious turn if the police continued to repress them.