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  • Hectic consultations on Telangana; TRS, TDP to boycott meeting

    Published on January 6, 2011

    TRS, spearheading the Telangana statehood movement, has rejected a fresh appeal by Home Minister P Chidambaram to participate in Thursday’s meeting to discuss the Justice Srikrishna report, even as Congress held hectic parleys with its leaders from Andhra Pradesh.

    Principal Opposition TDP and BJP will also skip the meeting to be attended by Congress, PRP, MIM, CPI(M) and CPI.

    After the meeting, the Justice B N Srikrishna Committee report on the emotive statehood issue will be made public.

    TRS rejected a fresh appeal from Chidambaram to attend Thursday’s meeting of political parties on the Srikrishna report.

    “Having committed in both houses of parliament for a separate Telangana state, it is better for the Congress to go ahead and deliver its promise of carving out a new state,” TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao said.

    Congress leaders held several rounds of discussions with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and leaders from Telangana region through the day.

    Congress President Sonia Gandhi held consultations with Kiran Reddy for over an hour on Wednesday morning and is understood to have discussed the political situation and the likely fallout of the report.

    “I also do not know what is in the report. Experts have gone into the issue (Telangana) in detail. Let us wait for them to submit the report. Let us see what is in it before making comments,” he told reporters at the Andhra Bhawan in New Delhi on Wednesday.

    Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the two Congress leaders, who will represent the party in Thursday’s meeting, that it is just to hand over Justice Srikrishna committee report to political parties and that they will get some time to give their opinion on the emotive issue.

    Later, he also met with MPs and senior leaders from Telangana and got to know the situation in the region. Ahmed Patel, the Congress chief’s political secretary, was also present at the meeting.

    After the meeting, the leaders said the Congress High Command has always been symphathetic to the cause of a separate Telangana and hoped that a new state will be formed.

    Regional differences in the ruling Congress persisted with MP K Sambasiva Rao and MLA Uttam Kumar Reddy, who hail from coastal Andhra and Telangana regions respectively, meeting Mukherjee separately.

    The two had represented the party during the previous meeting convened by the Centre on the statehood issue last year.

    The Chief Minister also met with Mukherjee and Chidambaram and is believed to have deliberated on the Telangana report.

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