JOIN USSolution eludes Telangana tangle
Law Minister M Veerappa Moily and Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel had a meeting with both the pro- and anti-Telangana MPs of the party separately and sought their opinions to resolve the crisis.
Moily, who is in charge of the party’s affairs in Andhra Pradesh, and Patel are expected to brief Sonia about the opinions of the party MPs before she holds a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Defence Minister A K Antony.
Singh remained non-committal when the journalists asked him about the Government’s future course of action on Telangana on Tuesday. “Nothing can be said right now,” he replied.
Sources in the Congress said that the party was finding it difficult to draft a statement that the Government could make to placate its MPs and MLAs from both Telangana as well as from coastal and Rayalseema region of AP. The MPs from Telangana wrote to the PM warning the Centre against any dilution of the December 9 statement by Chidambaram.
The Congress, which is in power both in the Centre and in AP, started the latest round of consultations a day after the Prime Minister said that a decision would be taken “to bring everything in order” in the State. The Congress’ Telangana MPs on Tuesday are believed to have written to the Prime Minister that the protests in Rayalseema and coastal Andhra against the creation of the new state were “not spontaneous”, but orchestrated by “land mafias and other vested interests”.
One of signatories said, “The Congress leaders and workers from Telangana are all disciplined soldiers of the party. But, if needed, we are also ready to quit our posts and join the movement for separate Telangana.”
The anti-State MPs who met Patel and Moily included Jaganmohan Reddy, son of late Chief Minister Y S R Reddy, K S Rao and K V P Ramachandra Rao as well as union ministers D Purandeshwari and Panabaka Laxmi.