IEven as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday remained non-committal on the separate Telangana issue, Union Law Minister and Congress general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh M. Veerappa Moily and Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel are reported to have ruled out the Centre going back on its statement agreeing to initiate the process for a separate State.
Responding to journalists’ questions at Parliament House, Dr. Singh stated that “right now nothing can be said.” However, he did not take more questions on the subject.
According to Peddapalle (SC) Lok Sabha member G. Vivekanand, the two leaders even told a delegation of Telangana MPs that there was no question of setting up a second State Reorganisation Commission to go into the Telangana issue. In fact Nizamabad MP Madhu Goud Yakshi told the two leaders that any reversal of stand by the Centre would be “disastrous” and all MPs from the Telangana region would quit their posts.
However, a delegation of Andhra-Rayalaseema Congress MPs, who had a separate meeting with Mr. Moily and Mr. Patel and also with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram told them not to rush with the decision and warned that any resolution on Telangana would get defeated in the Assembly. People of the Andhra-Rayalaseema regions would not accept any division of the State and the Centre should come out with a solution to satisfy all the sections and for the return of peace in the State.
Rajya Sabha member T. Subbarami Reddy said the Andhra-Rayalaseema MPs clearly told the leaders that return of normality in the State was most important now and the situation was worsening. He said a unified Andhra Pradesh would have more advantages than a divided State.
As the Congress parliamentary party from Andhra Pradesh (it has 33 members in the Lok Sabha and 14 in the Rajya Sabha) is divided vertically according to the regions the MPs represent, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K. Chandrasekhara Rao, whose fast- unto-death stir last month is responsible for the present crisis in the State, told journalists in Hyderabad that over 100 MLAs from the Telangana region would quit if the Centre went back on its promise for a separate State.
