Congress senior leader and state affairs incharge Digvijay Singh met the party president Sonia Gandhi here on Saturday morning. It is learnt that he had submitted a report on his observations about the political situation in AP, in the special context of the Telangana issue. According to political observers, Digvijay Singh’s report would form the basis for discussion on Telangana in the core committee meeting to be held on July 12.
The meeting would also consider the road maps that would be brought by the Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana and the Deputy Chief Minister Damodara Raja Narasimha. The three were asked to bring road maps on the options of keeping the state united and bifurcating it, to carve out Telangana. Congress party succeeded in generating a kind of euphoria among Telangana dreamers, apart from those using the issue for electoral gains. The recent visit of Divijay Singh to Hyderabad created renewed hopes for both the people and the political parties aspiring for the creation of the new state.
His visit also deflated the confidence of the integrationists who have been so far of the view that they had the strength to stall bifurcation. Congress used senior MP and staunch integrationist Kavuri Sambasiva Rao to unnerve the integrationists. By just including him in the union cabinet, Congress succeeded in making Kavuri change his perception. He suddenly gave up his demand of keeping the state united, showing that after all he was using the integration demand only to gain cabinet entry and not all that committed to the cause.
Now with the departure of Kavuri, the Samaikyandhra movement has considerably lost its morale. Integrationists are aghast that Congress veered round to the thought of dividing the state at a time when the emotions had actually cooled down and but for the political parties surviving on the state division issue, the movement would have totally died down. This reduced concern of the people for separate state was clearly evident through the way the YSR Congress honorary president Y S Vijayamma was able to tour the Telangana region without any major hurdles. But for the feeble attempts of some TRS activists, she had not faced any stiff resistance to her tour, in sharp contrast to the situation when her son and party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy was not allowed to step on the Telangana soil when he tried to visit Mahabubabad in Warangal district in May 2010.
Now Telangana appears to be a foregone conclusion, unless Seemandhra leaders manage a massive movement against it. Integrationists were hoping that the PCC chief Botsa would prevail upon the Congress leadership not to divide the state as the party might suffer damage in the Seemandhra region. Now it is being said that even Botsa was planning to support Telangana. He has already stated in public that there would be no harm if the Telugus had more than one state. Though it was then thought that he made that statement to pacify the Telangana leaders, Congress insiders now state that Botsa was preparing to recommend the state bifurcation.
Now of the three leaders being invited to the core committee meeting, Kiran would be the only leader to oppose state division. His recommendation would not carry weight as the other two, Botsa and the Deputy Chief Minister Damodara Raja Narasimha would be recommending state bifurcation. Congress leaders opposing bifurcation are now in a frantic mood.
As minister Sailajanath said “It is now or never”. Sailajanath and others are organizing an integrationist public meeting on the lines of the recent Telangana Sadhana Sabha organized by the party leaders of the ‘T’ region. If this attempt fails to draw the support of maximum number of Seemandhra leaders and public, then nothing cold be done to stall Telangana. Shailajanath called upon the Seemandhra region to attend the meeting and voice their opposition, as it would be “difficult to stall the Telangana process, once a declaration by the centre was made”.
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