Soon after the invitation from Union Minister and AICC general secretary in-charge of party affairs in the State, Vayalar Ravi, the Telangana Congress MPs deferred about resigning and decided to leave for the national capital on Wednesday morning.
As a matter of fact, the invitation from the Central leadership has come at a time when the Telangana MPs were divided over the resignation issue. While some of them were for resigning from Parliament, others felt that they should resign from Parliament as well as Congress. Even before a consensus could be reached, the New Delhi invite has come as a great relief. They decided that their further action would be chalked out after meeting the Central leaders and hearing their point of few over the delay in taking a decision on the Telangana issue.
Informed sources indicated that the Congress High Command’s decision on Telangana seemed to be linked with the number of seats the party would win in the 2014 elections as it was very keen to achieve a hat-trick in leading the UPA-III Government at the Centre. Thus the party leadership is weighing the pros and cons of the party’s chances in the event of AP’s bifurcation or the advantages of the party in maintaining the status quo.
If the party’s think-tank, which includes Rahul Gandhi, opines that the AP’s present status quo has to be maintained, then some compensation has to be offered to the Telangana region. One of the options before the central leadership was to set up a separate Telangana Development Council with substantial financial allocation. The Telangana Development Council would be headed by a BC leader from the region. To further appease the T people, the Chief Minister ship would also be entrusted to a leader from the region. Since already there is Deputy Chief Minister belonging to SC, he might be elevated as CM. Another option being considered is to create the post of a second Deputy Chief Minister to be selected from the Seemandhra region, these sources indicated.
During their discussions in New Delhi, Vayalar Ravi might put forth these options before the T Congress MPs. Whether this package is acceptable or not for the T Congress MPs is a million dollar question because the sentiments in the region is so strong that nothing sort of a separate Telangana state would be acceptable.
The Delhi bosses are also fully aware that the sentiment among the people of Seemandhra was also gaining momentum in the region. Thus the central leadership has to perform a tight rope walking to appease the people of both Telangana and Seemandhra regions. There is no denial of the fact that it would be a herculean task for the Central leadership to satisfy the political leaders more than the people of the two regions with any decision on Telangana. Thus the central leaders to avoid any explosive situation in any of the regions would try to drag on the issue till the 2014 elections in a bid to buy more time for the time being.