Not against Telangana, says Congress

Hydearabad: There seems to be some difference in opinion between the Congress Central leadership and the government with different statements on Telangana coming from the two quarters.

 

On Wednesday, the Congress went into damage control mode and the party’s official spokesperson P.C. Chacko said that the Congress was, in principle, not against the formation of Telangana and it would honour whatever decision the government took. Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who returned from Dhaka, however, reiterated his old view. “It will take some more time for consultations before making an announcement on Telangana,” he said.

 

A few Congress MLCs who were in Delhi were, on the other hand, told by some AICC leaders that the Centre had in principle decided to divide the state and was going to grant statehood to Telangana soon. They added that Hyderabad would be declared as a Union Territory for some years.

 

By Wednesday evening, there was a clear division among the seven Telangana Congress MPs who had announced their intention to quit both from the Congress and the Lok Sabha.

 

While Nizamabad MP Madhu Yashki Goud announced in Delhi that he would not quit given Congress official spokesperson P.C. Chacko’s statement on Telangana, the other six MPs — Ponnam Prabhakar, G. Vivek, Gutta Sukhender Reddy, S. Rajaiah, Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy and Manda Jagannadham — said that there had been no change in plans to quit.

 

In fact, Prabhakar had earlier decided to take back his resignation along with Goud, but later backed out. He said that there was no going back on the resignation move and that he had personally handed over the resignation letters of all six MPs, barring Goud’s, to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s office on Wednesday afternoon.

 

The other MPs, in a statement, said, “We reiterate our decision to stand by our resignations. We deny any reports contrary to this.

 

Our fight to achieve Telangana will continue.” Sources said that Union science and technology minister S. Jaipal Reddy had intervened and told the MPs that the Centre would grant a T-state within the next few weeks and there was no need for them to rush in with their resignations.

 

Meanwhile, AICC emissary and Union minister Vayalar Ravi, who had invited the Telangana Congress MPs to Delhi for talks, could not meet the MPs due to illness and hospitalisation. Mr Ravi sent word to the MPs that they could meet him on February 3.

 

It should be noted that the Congress spokesperson’s statement that the party was not against formation of Telangana is nothing new. YSR, as chief minister, had made the same statement in the Assembly on February 12, 2009, before the general elections and the same was incorporated in the election manifesto too.

 

A few Congress MLCs from Telangana, meanwhile, were told by some key party functionaries in Delhi that the Centre had already decided to divide the state and only the status of Hyderabad remained unsolved. An MLC, on condition of anonymity, told this correspondent that Centre was mulling to give Union Territory status to Hyderabad for a while and would soon negotiate with leaders from both the regions on this.