New Delhi, July 6
The Congress is believed to be persuading Telengana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) chief K.Chandraskhekhar Rao that he should not insist on the
immediate creation of a separate state of Telengana and instead agree to the constitution of a Second State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) which would examine this issue.
The Congress and TRS had taken this position in their joint election campaign last year but after the formation of the UPA government, the TRS insisted that the demand for Telengana be addressed immediately. Consequently, the issue found a special mention in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) and a
sub-committee was set up to examine the feasibility of this demand. Faced with differing views from the UPA partners, the panel is expected to suggest that a SRC be set up to look into the demand for smaller states.
This an attempt by the Congress to buy time as it now getting cold feet as the Telgana issue which could well open up the proverbial Pandora’s Box. “The Congress will have to take a political view on this as this will have repurcussions in other states,” Mr Digivjay Singh, AICC general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh, said here today.
Meanwhile, the Congress is making every possible attempt to persuade the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) to rejoin the Andhra Pradesh ministry as it does not want to give the impression that it failed its coalition partners. TRS chief K.Chandrasehkhar Rao, however, is determined not to go back on his decision.
In an effort to buy time, the resignation letters of the TRS ministers in Andhra Pradesh have been kept pending on the ground that Chief Minister Y. Rajasekhara Reddy is abroad and will return only on Monday. It was stated that the TRS ministers had sent their resignations directly to the Governor, who, in turn, had forwarded them to the Chief Minister for comments.
“We shall try our utmost to see that the TRS returns to the government,” said Mr Digvijay Singh, who has been entrusted with the task of persuading Mr Rao.
Mr Singh, who had a luncheon meeting with the TRS chief yesterday, said that as far as the Congress is concerned, “we would like them to be with us both in the state and at the Centre.” He agreed that the TRS departure will not make any material difference to the stability of the Andhra Pradesh Government but felt the Congress would not like to loose its allies. “We don’t want to let down our friends,” he added.
Consequently, the Congress has gone into an overdrive to address the TRS chief’s grievances. The UPA sub-committee,
headed by Union Minister Pranab Mukherjee, which is examining the demand for a separate Telengana, will now meet on Friday to discuss and possibly finalise its recommendations. The report will then go to the wider UPA coordination committee for a final
decision. One of Mr Rao’s complaints is that the sub-committee’s functioning had been far too slow.
