Cong tries to hijack Telangana stir

NEW DELHI: Congress’ Telangana leaders, who were left playing minor parts in the K Chandrasekhar Rao dominated-drama unleashed by the Centre’s December 9 statehood decision, are belatedly attempting to rewrite the script in the second part of the Telangana show.

With the Centre having put the Telangana decision in the deep freezer by talking of “wide-ranging consultations” before proceeding further, Telangana Congress leaders are now taking a shot at claiming credit by insisting on a time-frame for the creation of the new state.

After a spate of ‘resignations’ handed over to Congress president Sonia Gandhi by Telangana MPs, MLAs and ministers, Congress’ leaders from the region also want to take the lead in organising the protests of the joint action committee (JAC) formed by all Telangana parties.

The 13 Congress ministers from Telangana in the K Rosaiah cabinet, who had put in their papers on Friday in protest against the UPA government’s December 23 announcement, were also in the Capital to press their case on Sunday.
They met Union urban development minister Jaipal Reddy, who hails from the region, and have sought meetings with Ms Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday.

The leaders are in the Capital with the aim of conveying to members of the Congress core group that the December 23 decision of the government has generated “confusion” among the people of Telangana region and hence the Centre must clarify the time-frame for the implementation of its promise to create Telangana.

“We are here to ask the Centre and the Congress party to come out with a time-bound programme for the creation of a Telangana state,” Andhra Pradesh information and tourism minister Geeta Reddy said. However, of the 13 ministers who had sent in a common resignation to the Congress president only nine ministers are part of the delegation that is in the Capital.

The ministers’ appeal to the Congress leadership came even as the party’s Telangana leadership was rethinking its participation in JAC formed for the Telangana cause. The JAC, which includes TRS, Congress, TDP and PRP, is now riven by fault lines as TDP has already refused to be a part of it.

“We have to discuss the size of the JAC. Ours is a national party. We have 13 ministers, 12 MPs and 70 MLAs and MLCs. We are meeting on December 29 to discuss how to participate in the JAC,” senior Congress MLA R Damodar Reddy said in Hyderabad on Sunday. He also insisted that Ms Gandhi and the prime minister should grant statehood to Telangana and added that Congress legislators from Telangana were trying to convince the top leadership about the need for announcing the separate state.

However, the move to corner credit for the move is unlikely to serve the interest of the Congress at the Centre which is caught between the interests of its leaders from Telangana and those from coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalseema, who are against the bifurcation of the state.

The Central government is unlikely to move further on the Telangana process until it can find a way to satisfy the anti-Telangana groups who are keen on retaining Hyderabad and devise a method to quell the statehood demands emanating from regions such as Gorkhaland and Vidharbha. In this scenario, both Congress in the state as well as the Centre stand to lose on account of the Telangana Congress leaders demands.