Cong top brass meets on T-issue
The top brass of the Congress Party on Friday put its head together on how to resolve the ticklish issue of a separate Telangana state following the report of the Justice Srikrishna Committee.
The party’s core group, consisting of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, met here on Friday night.
Home minister P. Chidambaram was present at the meeting after which sources said there would be further consultations with party MPs from the state, especially from the Telangana region.
With the Congress buffeted by the Telangana issue and Mr Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s rebellion, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had held a meeting with the Congress MPs from Telangana and had asked them to “cooperate”.
The MPs have remained firm on their demand insisting that there was no question of going back. “We are not going to rest with anything other than the separate state of Telangana,” has been the refrain among them.
Seeking to buy time, the Congress high command appears to be toying with the idea of having a deputy chief minister and Pradesh Congress Committee chief in Andhra Pradesh from the Telangana region amid a growing clamour for a separate state.
As part of this strategy, AICC PCC chief D. Srinivas, who hails from Telangana, would continue till further orders.
The party made a special announcement of his continuation.
The Congress is so far maintaining a wait-and-watch approach on the challenge thrown up by the Srikrishna Committee report on Telangana, which has given various options, including keeping the state united as well as formation of a separate Telangana.
The party is banking heavily on newly installed chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy to tackle the situation.
The deliberations by the top Congress leadership were the first after rebel leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy took his battle to Delhi by organising a one-day fast here, which was attended by two dozen Congress MLAs, including a few from the Telangana region.
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