Centre invites twos to tangle

Published: 13th December 2012 08:24 AM  |   Last Updated: 13th December 2012 08:24 AM

By J R Prasad | ENS

Two-eyed parties such as the TDP, Congress and YSR Congress  have been invited to talk in two tongues at the all-party meeting on the Telangana issue scheduled for Dec. 28. The Union Home Ministry on Wednesday sent out invitations to political parties of Andhra Pradesh to send two representatives each to what will now be a gabfest of double talk.

Political leaders on the Telangana side of the divide began yelling blue murder over this manouevre, saying it was a ruse to cloud the issue rather than resolve it.

The invitations were sent out by an additional secretary in the Union Home Ministry, K Skandan, to nine recognised parties from AP:  Congress, TDP, YSR Congress, TRS, BJP, CPI, CPM, MIM and Lok Satta. The first three are Janus-faced on the issue, pro-bifurcation in Telangana and integrationist in Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. The next three are solidly for a seprate state, and the latter three vehemently against. The last six are not likely to send two reps each to the meeting, while two of the first-named three -- TDP and Congress -- are likely to lap up the invitation.

The meeting will convene at 10 am on Dec. 28 in room no. 103 in the North Block in New Delhi.

In his letter, Skandan desisted from calling the meeting an all-party meeting and imputed that it has been called because MPs from Andhra Pradesh wanted a dialogue and they were getting one.

Telangana Congress MPs, whose pressure tactics presumably forced the Centre to call this conclave were the unhappiest with this tango of twos.

Two Congress MLCs from Telangana, K Yadav Reddy and Bhanu Prasad, said this seemed to betray the Union home minister’s intention to complicate the matter further.

Already, Telangana Congress leaders were talking about going to Delhi to lobby the high command to withdraw the invitation to twos and limit the discussion to clearly spelt out stances by all parties in the field.

Opposition parties were less charitable. TRS legislator T Harish Rao said this showed the “non-serious approach” of the Congress in solving the Telangana issue. “The Centre says it has sent these letters only at the request of some MPs from the state. This itself shows that neither the Centre nor the Congress high command wants to solve the Telangana issue,” he said. While Telangana leaders feigned shock, there have several signals from high commandos that the Centres intends to keep the issue in the logjam of talks for a long time to come. Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said in Delhi two days ago that the process of holding consultations on the Telangana  issue would continue till a conclusion is arrived over the issue.