All-party meet on Telangana begins

The meeting being held at the Home Ministry here is being attended by eight registered political parties in Andhra Pradesh -- Congress, TDP, TRS, Praja Rajyam, CPI(M), CPI, BJP and MIM.

As the representatives of the parties arrived to attend the conference, pro and anti-Telangana activists shouted slogans in support of their demands. Besides, the TRS leader and the Chief Minister, others attending the meeting are actor-turned-politician and PRP leader Chiranjeevi and his associate C Ramachandraiah, K S Rao and Uttamkumar Reddy (both Cong) and Y Ramakrishna Du and R Prakash (both TDP).

Andhra Pradesh BJP unit chief Bandaru Dattareya and his colleague Hari Babu, B V Raghavallu and J Rangareddy (CPI-M), K Narayanan and Malesh (CPI) and Asaduddin Owaisi and Akbaruddin Owaisi of MIM are also attending the deliberations. The meeting comes a day after hectic consultations involving Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his cabinet colleagues on the Telangana issue even as the TRS chief demanded an immediate Parliament law to facilitate formation of a separate state.

Singh had discussed the issue with senior colleagues Pranab Mukherjee (Finance), P Chidambaram (Home), A K Antony (Defence) and Veerappa Moily (Law).

Rosaiah, who had arrived here on Monday to participate in the meeting, had met Chidambaram and followed it up with another meeting with the Prime Minister."I am not here to give any solution. I will attend the meeting as Chief Minister".

Chandrasekhar Rao has demanded that the Centre should follow up on its promise to create separate Telangana. "The Government has announced its policy on Telangana. It should follow it up with Constitutional process. A resolution should be moved in Parliament," he told reporters after meeting CPI general secretary A B Bardhan yesterday.

Congress and TDP, which are in a Catch-22 situation with deep divisions between their partymen from the three regions of the state, have done a delicate balancing act by nominating one person each from Telangana and coastal Andhra regions for the meet. Huzurnagar MLA N Uttam Kumar Reddy, who hails from Telangana, and senior party MP from Eluru, Kavuri Sambasiva Rao, representing coastal Andhra, are part of the Congress team at the meeting.

Former minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu (coastal Andhra region) and senior MLA Revuri Prakash Reddy (Telangana) are representing the TDP. Chandrasekhar Rao On Monday said the Centre should follow up its announcement on Telangana with a Parliament resolution for the formation of a separate state. He will be here for a week and meet leaders of various political parties to drum up support for Telangana.