In a bid to pacify agitated Andhra and Rayalaseema members, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday set up a four-member committee headed by Defence Minister AK Antony to address their concerns regarding the decision to create Telangana.
The four-member committee would include AICC general secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijay Singh, Union Minister Veerappa Moily and Political Secretary of the Congress president Ahmad Patel, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said. The committee has been formed after Union Ministers from the two regions met Sonia on Tuesday to convey their concerns. Seven Congress MPs from the two regions have already submitted their resignations and even Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana have opposed the decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.
However, expectations of the MPs and Ministers were dampened by Congress spokesperson P Chacko’s assertion that the panel has been constituted to implement the CWC decision on Telangana and not to withhold it. Telangana decision has been taken up at the highest decision making body of the party CWC, so there is no going back, he said. Follow-up action will be taken as there are many things to be decided by the Government and the party and the panel will do that job.
Regarding the apprehensions that due to widespread protest against the division of the State, Andhra Pradesh Assembly may not pass a resolution and send it back to the Centre for passage by Parliament, Chacko said that though it is a Constitutional provision, in case of contingency the Centre can go ahead even without such Assembly resolution.
He rejected the BJP’s criticism that the Congress has created a mess on Telangana issue unlike the NDA regime which created three States peacefully. Asking why the BJP did not create Telangana along with other three States, he said that despite division within the Congress, the CWC took the decision for creating Telangana as the Congress had the political courage, conviction and guts to take difficult decisions while the BJP shied away from it and took an easy way out.