Big eight to meet centre over Telangana in early February
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New Delhi: The much-awaited meeting of eight political parties of Andhra Pradesh to discuss the recommendations of the Srikrishna Committee on Telangana and find out a solution acceptable to all is likely to be held early next month.
Sources said the government would like to take a decision on the recommendations of the panel possibly before the Budget Session of Parliament starting in February-end.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram is leaving for Davos in Switzerland tonight to participate the World Economic Forum meeting and will return to the capital on January 30.
A decision about the possible date of the proposed meeting is expected to be taken after his return here.
Telangana issue is likely to have a mention at the February 1 meeting of chief ministers of all states convened by the Home Ministry.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the meeting.
The indication that a meeting on Telanagan will be held in early February had also come after the January 21 meeting of the Congress Core Group comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and a few other top leaders.
Earlier there was an impression that the meeting would be held before the Republic Day, but the sources said that the consultations within the ruling party were not yet over and would take some more time.
As three major parties - TRS, TDP and BJP - did not participate in the January six meeting, where the report was made public, the Centre was treading cautiously and expecting participation of all the eight parties.
The Central government is hopeful that all eight political parties will attend the next meeting on Telangana.
However, so far it is not clear how many representatives will be invited from each party.
Since two representatives were invited for the January six meeting, the TRS had alleged that the Centre wanted a split opinion from each party, leading to its boycott.
Though the Srikrishna Committee gave six options to find a solution to the Telangana issue, the panel itself rejected the first four options suggested by it as 'non-practicable'.
So, the next meeting would mainly concentrate on the two key recommendations - keeping Andhra Pradesh united with Constitutional and Statutory measures for empowerment of the Telangana region as it 'is the best way forward' and creating a separate state which can be the 'second best' option to tackle the statehood demand.
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