Telangana will be India’s 29th State. Facing a political washout in Andhra Pradesh (AP), the Congress on Tuesday decided to divide the southern State to offset its losses in next year’s lok Sabha polls.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) unanimously passed a resolution to create Telangana after the approval of the UPA’s allies at a Coordination Committee meeting on Tuesday. The matter has now been listed for the Cabinet’s approval on Wednesday.
The new State will have ten districts of Telangana region while Hyderabad will be the joint Capital for ten years. The Centre will assist the residuary State of Andhra Pradesh to build a new Capital within that period, according to the CWC resolution adopted after an hour-long meeting.
With lok Sabha elections scheduled in 2014, the Government is working at breakneck speed, as the entire process of creating a separate State will take about four to five months.
Though Congress general secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh, Digvijay Singh claimed that the decision was not being taken due to political expediency, political analysts feel that the last minute hurry was being shown so that the Congress could get political mileage in Telangana region.
The new State will have 17 lok Sabha seats and 119 Assembly seats out of 42 lok Sabha and 294 Assembly seats of undivided AP.
The districts that will be part of the new State will be Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mahbubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Rangareddy and Warangal besides Hyderabad. A Group of Ministers may consider the demands for inclusion of more areas, Digvijay Singh said after the CWC meeting.
He even reminded Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) of its earlier offer to merge with the Congress if Telangana is granted and said that the Congress is expecting TRS to honour its promise.
Meanwhile, a special Cabinet meeting will be held on Wednesday to formally approve the decision to create Telangana which the Centre will then refer to the AP Assembly for an appropriate resolution.
Once it is passed, the Union Cabinet will approve the resolution and refer the matter to a Group of Ministers which will deliberate on technical issues like sharing water resources, power and other resource sharing and prepare a draft Bill. This will again be sent to the State Government for its comments.
However, the Centre is empowered to incorporate or reject the Assembly’s recommendations. Even the passage of the resolution is not binding on the Centre, Digvijay said, thereby signaling to the opponents of Telangana that they cannot thwart the creation of the new State by rejecting the resolution in the Assembly.
The new State will be born after the draft Bill is presented in Parliament and Presidential assent is obtained.
The entire process will take about four to five months’ time.
Meanwhile, hectic parley were held throughout the day with Congress Ministers and MPs from AP and coastal region including Pallam Raju, Purandeswari, Panabaka lakshmi, Chiranjeevi and others meeting Congress President Sonia Gandhi in a last minute effort to dissuade her from dividing AP. They also met Digvijay Singh, but their efforts proved futile.
Sonia assured them that the concerns of the people of Andhra and coastal region will be taken into consideration while creating Telangana. Despite being under pressure to resign from their supporters, the Ministers and MPs have decided to continue in office, but vote against the Bill once it comes in Parliament or Assembly.
Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, who had reportedly conveyed that he would not like to preside over the division of the State, termed reports about his resignation as false. However, sources said that instead of resigning, Reddy would prefer the Congress leadership to remove him as this would allow him to save face among the people of coastal Andhra. Reddy along with PCC President had met Digvijay before the CWC meeting.
In a bid to pacify them, CWC decided to identify the special needs of the backward regions/districts of AP and to provide adequate funds for the development of those areas.
The CWC meeting, which was chaired by Sonia, also decided to establish and institute a mechanism to address the concerns of the people of Andhra and Rayalseema on matters relating to sharing of river waters, generation and distribution of electricity etc.
It also decided to declare Polavaram irrigation project as National Project and to provide adequate funds for its completion.
Despite the open opposition of these people, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the decision will help the people of the entire State. Digvijay said that the CWC acknowledged that creating Telangana was not an easy decision to take and has been taken after widest possible consultation and after taking into account the history of the demand for a separate State since 1956.