Congress president Sonia Gandhi has entrusted the job of finding a solution to the Telangana statehood issue to the members of the Congress Core Committee barring herself and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Sources said she has also included AICC general secretary and in-charge of AP affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad and Union minister Vayalar Ravi in the deliberations.
The committee members comprising Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, political secretary to Congress president Ahmed Patel, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and special invitees Mr Azad and Mr Vayalar Ravi, had a meeting on Wednesday at the Congress war room near Parliament on the issue. Sources added that this was the fourth meeting in the last 15 days.
The committee will have to arrive at a formula agreeable to all regions of the state and place it before the Congress president. Its members, who are well-versed with the various arguments put forth by delegations from all the three regions in the state, are presently working out a ‘middle path’ on the status of the capital city Hyderabad, sources added. At a meeting with the Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy on Wednesday evening, Congress president Sonia Gandhi apparently discussed Telangana at length.
“The Congress high-command has come to the conclusion that unless something tangible is offered to end the tangle, the Telangana agitation, in some form or the other, will continue to embarrass the party till the 2014 elections,” said a source.
The options apparently being considered include:
1. Complete rejection of the demand for a Telangana state and offer some packages to the Telangana region instead.
2. Announcing a separate Telangana state with protections and packages to the Seemandhra region.
3. Bifurcate the state and make Hyderabad the permanent capital for both states.
4. Declare Hyderabad Metropolitan Area as a Union Territory and then split the remaining state into two parts with separate capitals. In a related development, former PCC chief D. Srinivas on Thursday met Mrs Gandhi at her residence.
Meanwhile, T-ministers led by panchayat raj minister K. Jana Reddy have decided to go to the national capital on Friday to meet all the committee members on the Telangana -issue.