The Congress will shortly finalise its views on Telangana before it calls an all-party meeting to take a final decision on a problem that has paralysed a third of Andhra Pradesh for close to four weeks now.
The informal core group on Telangana, which completed its consultations with Congress leaders from both sides of the divide in Andhra Pradesh on Monday, are now set to brief Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi: to finalise the Congress' own position before the all-party meeting, as had been promised by the government.
Congress sources said the Congress core group – whose members include Dr. Singh, Ms. Gandhi, Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram, A.K. Antony and Ms. Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel – is likely to meet on Tuesday or Wednesday. At that meeting, the top two leaders will be told about the consultations that have been going on for the last two months and the conclusions arrived at.
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On Monday, the consultations that the informal core group headed by Mr. Mukherjee were holding ended.
Parties’ views sought
Earlier this year, Mr. Mukherjee wrote to all political parties seeking their views on the Telangana issue. Thus far, the four parties that had not expressed an opinion were the Congress, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the YSR Congress Party and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM). While the TDP and the YSR Congress Party had said they wanted the Congress to declare its views, the MIM let the Congress know informally that it would go along with it.
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