Congress core committee discusses Telangana

NEW DELHI: The Congress core committee met here Friday evening to discuss the mechanism to carry forward the dialogue process on the vexatious Telangana statehood issue.

Congress sources said the meeting discussed the situation in Andhra Pradesh and the outcome of the Jan 5 meeting between the government and eight recognized political parties of Andhra Pradesh.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram had said after the eight-party meeting that none of the political parties was against more consultations. The meeting had also issued an appeal for maintaining peace in the state.

The sources said that the government's first priority was return of normalcy to the state which has been split along regional lines on the issue of Telangana for almost a month.

They said that the mechanism for dialogue process would be announced in the next few days.

The core committee meeting, held at the Prime Minister's House, was attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Chidambaram, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Ahmed Patel, political secretary to the Congress president.

Congress MP K.S. Rao had met Sonia Gandhi and Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily earlier in the day. Moily suggested forming a committee to look into various opinions on the separate statehood issue.