Union home minister P. Chidambaram will meet representatives of political parties on Thursday to hand over a copy of the Justice Srikrishna Committee’s report on the demand to carve out a separate state of Telangana. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), BJP and Telugu Desam Party have said they will boycott the meeting. In view of the move to make public the report on Thursday, the Congress has asked its MPs from Telangana region not to raise the political temperature in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, meanwhile, met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and briefed her on the security arrangements in the state and discussed the political situation and the likely consequences of the report. When asked about the report, he said, “I also do not know what is in the report. Experts have gone into the issue in detail. Let us wait for them to submit the report. Let us see what is in it before making comments.”
Asked if reports of MLAs and MPs resigning also figured in the discussion with Mrs Gandhi, Mr Reddy said, “It is not proper for me to say what I discussed with my president.” The CM also met Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and discussed the possible repercussions of the report.
Mr Mukherjee, who met MPs Uttam Kumar Reddy and K. Sambasiva Rao, apparently told them the meeting was just to hand over the report. Regional differences came to the fore when both MPs spoke to the media. Mr Uttam Reddy, who is from Telangana, was confident that Telangana would be granted statehood, while Mr Sambasiva Rao, from coastal Andhra, held the opposite view. “I hope that Telangana with Hyderabad as capital will be one of the options given by the Srikrishna Committee,” said Mr Uttam Reddy.
Later, in the company of defence minister A.K. Antony, law minister Veerappa Moily and Mr Ahmed Patel, political secretary to the Congress president, Mr Mukherjee met all the Congress MPs from Telangana region to ask them not to vitiate the atmosphere by making provocative statements. The leaders made it clear the handing over of the report was just a preliminary exercise. The MPs who emerged from the meeting said they were confident that a separate Telangana would be granted. “They briefed us about the agenda for tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) meeting and we are confident that our demand will be met,” said an MP.
Security across Andhra Pradesh has been beefed up to prevent any kind of untoward incident. Meanwhile, with the TRS, BJP and TDP deciding to stay away from the meeting, only five parties — the Congress, PRP, MIM, CPI and CPI(M) — will meet Mr Chidambaram and take the report with them. The report will be sent to those parties that do not participate in the meeting and will also be available on the home ministry website.
The Srikrishna Committee, asked for its recommendations on the different demands of carving out a separate state of Telangana and also keeping the state of Andhra Pradesh united, gave its report on December 30, 2010.