Congress leadership agrees on Telangana, final decision in CWC meeting. Hyderabad will become an Union Territory and a shared capital on the lines of the Chandigarh Model. There will be a district reorganisation with both the two new states getting 21 districts each. Andhra Pradesh currently has 23 districts. The announcement of the new state of Telangana would be made by Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in the parliament. These were some of the things discussed in the Congress Core Group meeting that took place in New Delhi on 26 July evening.
Apart from members of the core group which includes Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Home Minister Shinde, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister AK Anthony and Political Secretary to Congress President Ahmed Patel, the meeting was also attended by Congress’ General Secretary in charge for Andhra Digvijaya Singh and the former in charge Ghulam Nabi Azad.
The meeting saw everybody broadly agreeing on the creation of a separate state of Telangana in principle. The Home Minister was asked to assess the prevalent law and order situation in Andhra Pradesh. He was also asked send in more security forces if the situation so demanded.
It was once again decided in the Core Group that the Prime Minister will either convene all party meeting or speak to leaders of all parties individually regarding the issue. The UPA Chairperson will convene the meeting of the UPA Coordination Committee to make sure that all the allies are on board.
The Core Committee’s proposal will now be placed before the Congress Working Committee for ratification. The Centre will make special economic package for both the newly carved states. With both the General and the state elections less than a year away, the Congress feel that it will politically benefit from the decision. K Chandrashekar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi had publicly declared that if Congress agrees for Telangana it will merge with the Congress.
