Pressure on govt to announce Telangana mechanism

NEW DELHI: As the January 28 deadline set by the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) approaches, the UPA government is set to come under increased pressure to announce a time-bound consultative mechanism for the creation of the new state.

The Congress core committee, which includes Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on Friday evening discussed the law and order situation in Telangana. It dwelt on the possibility of announcing the panel by end-January, sources said. The meeting was also attended by senior minister Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony, P Chidambaram and Ms Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel. The political JAC had, earlier this week, set January 28 as the deadline for the Centre to announce the time-schedule for carving Telangana.

The party's Telangana leaders are an unhappy lot caught as they are between orders of the Congress high command asking them to withdraw resignations and make efforts to "restore peace" on the one hand and the imperatives of JAC, of which Congress is a member, on the other hand. The 11 Congress MPs from the region are likely to seek a meeting with Ms Gandhi to put forward their demand for an early announcement of the Telangana panel. A Congress MP from Telangana said failing the Centre's announcement of the panel, along with a time-frame for discussions, the agitation would go out of hand and a constitutional crisis could not be avoided with all legislators stepping down.

What has put even more pressure on Telangana Congress leaders is JAC's decision to press all legislators, including MPs and state ministers from the region, to immediately submit resignations to the Lok Sabha and state assembly Speakers respectively.

Out of the 119 MLAs from Telangana, Congress has 54 members. Of these, about 28 have submitted their resignations to the Speaker. The 12 ministers in the K Rosaiah government, who had sent a common resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, have gone back to work. Even the two ministers who had resisted the move to take back the resignations had fallen in line, paving the way for de-escalation of tensions. However, subsequently, with the Centre dithering over the announcement of a consultative panel, the Congress' Telangana leaders have been under pressure to prove their commitment to the Telangana cause.

"It is being said that without a political crisis the Congress high command will not act. However, we are fully confident that Ms Gandhi will fulfill our expectations about Telangana and initiate the process of forming the state," Congress MP Ponnam Prabhakar said.

A showdown at Tuesday's JAC meeting after Dalit leader Manda Krishna criticised Ms Gandhi and TDP's Chandrababu Naidu for obstructing Telangana saw Congress leaders go on the defensive. Senior party MLA and former home minister K Jana Reddy claimed: "If required, we are even thinking about breaking away from the party."

Now with the agitation picking up ahead of the deadline set by JAC, Telangana Congress leaders are meeting in Hyderabad on Saturday to chalk out the next course of action. Their meeting will coincide with relay hunger strikes by MLAs and other elected representatives from Saturday onwards.