Centre strategises for today's meet

Before Uttam Kumar Reddy, Congress MLA from Huzurnagar (Telangana), left Hyderabad yesterday for Delhi to prepare himself for the all party meeting convened by Home Minister P Chidambaram on statehood for Telangana, he called upon the students who were agitating in Osmania University to hear what he already knew: laathi goli khayenge; Telangana le jayenge. Emotions ran high. The students asked: “those of you who are ready to be killed for a separate state, raise your hands” most of the 500,000-strong crowd raised its hands. “Those of you who are ready to kill for Telangana, raise your hands” was the next question. The same number of hands were raised again. Reddy heard the students and then boarded his Delhi-bound flight.

When he alighted from the aircraft he found the mailbox in his mobile full. In three hours, he’d got 483 SMSs, all of which said, with minor variation: “don’t come back without Telangana”.

This was the mood at the residence of V Hanumanth Rao, Rajya Sabha MP where a meeting of pro-Telangana MPs of the Congress was on till late at night, prepping Reddy: he is their representative at the all-party meeting called by the Home Minister at 11.00 tomorrow. Kavoori Sambasiva Rao, MP from Eluru, representing coastal Andhra Pradesh, is the other one on the team. The third is chief minister K Rosiah.

The Telangana agitationists met in the morning at the residence of Urban development Minister S Jaipal Reddy, MP from Chevella in Telangana. Reddy is trying to mediate between the two groups: those for undivided Andhra Pradesh and those for Telangana. He has made little headway, so strong is the divide in the Congress. An MP noted that for the 175th anniversary celebrations of the Congress in the party headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad, Telangana MPs stood separately to salute the flag and the other Congress MPs stood separately in a group.

The tutorial for Reddy was along predictable lines: Telangana has been victimised, it has just one medical college, no irrigation, the Finance Commission must recognise it, we eat biryani, they eat rice, we drink tea, they want coffee... we’re different, etc.

However, the group was clear: no Telangana without Hyderabad, no regional board, no special development package. “We’re ready to wait. It isn’t as if we want the government to announce the separate state tomorrow. But we do want to hear that the process (for a separate state) has started” said an MP present there.

There are other fears. The so-called Joint Action Committee (JAC) which is spearheading the Telangana movement – and at whose behest, the former home minister of Andhra Pradesh, Devender Goud (who despite Z plus security, was virtually beaten up by students when he went to meet them) is led by Maoist sympathisers. Kodanda Ram Reddy, its most vocal leader from Jawaharlal Nehru University and currently professor of political science, has a reputation for being critical of police repression. The Home Ministry is worried that once formed, the Telangana assembly should not become a playground of the Maoists, a ‘liberated’ zone.

Therefore, torn between its pro and anti-Telangana lobbies, the Congress is trying to buy time. The Home Minister’s meeting is likely to lead to more meetings over the next few months and perhaps formation of a political committee to talk to different parties. The mechanism of the committee—just as it had done in 2004 when Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) was an ally of the UPA—will also provide some breathing space for the government.

“The objective of the party is clear. We will elicit, understand and absorb whatever consensus view emerges from the diverse, multi-party forum. Our approach is entirely based on the issue of consensus. We expect more meetings to take place,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters. The party is likely to constitute a committee to evolve a larger consensus on the issue.

The brass is not likely to recommend the formation of a second State Reorganiaation Commission soon. According to a legal brain of the party, “an SRC is basically to see how a new state can be formed. It doesn’t go into the political issue of whether a state needs to be formed or not. The party has to first decide the second question before taking the next step.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a meeting with state chief minister K Rosaiah, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram this evening to finalise the government’s strategy before meeting the other parties in this volatile situation.

And what of the man who started it all, TRS chief K Chandrashekhar Rao ? The Congress says he is ready to merge his party into the Congress. If that happens, KCR will be yet another name to the list of Congress leaders who fancy themselves as chief minister of Telangana sometime in the future. Meanwhile in Delhi, KCR held a long meeting with CPI general secretary A B Bardhan today. He is planning to meet the UPA allies like NCP’s Sharad Pawar, RJD’s Lalu Prasad and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee.