From The Hindu, 1 Nov 2013
By inviting political parties for another round of
consultations on Telangana even while it is hurtling towards the
direction of dividing Andhra Pradesh, the Centre has made its plans
about the future of the State quite suspect.
As
alleged by Seemandhra protagonists earlier, the Congress is again
putting the cart before the horse. It did so earlier when it began the
process of consulting stakeholders through the Antony Committee after
the Congress Working Committee and the Union Cabinet approved the
proposal for creation of Telangana. It is a different matter that the
Committee was still born.
Also, consultations with
political parties at this juncture appear strange, as the Group of
Ministers (GoM) headed by Home Minister S. K. Shinde has completed two
meetings and is scheduled to hold the third one on November 7. On the
other hand, top officials are moving back and forth from Delhi for
consultations at a speed uncharacteristic of the government to prepare
the ground for the November 7 meeting.
Mr. K. Vijay
Kumar, senior security advisor the Ministry of Home Affairs, is camping
in Hyderabad since three days to discuss a range of issues from sharing
of police assets to developing a joint mechanism to ensure the security
of software establishments.
The Centre’s latest
invitation to parties has drawn comparisons with the CWC’s sudden
decision on July 30 in the sense that both are alleged to have been
motivated by political considerations. While it was votes and seats that
mattered then, the objective now appears to expose Telugu Desam
president N. Chandrababu Naidu for his ambiguous stand on Telangana.
Mr.
Naidu’s is the only major party that has not stated in clear-cut terms
whether it is in favour of unified Andhra Pradesh or separate Telangana.
Indeed, it has given a letter in support of bifurcation, but Mr. Naidu
is now singing the tune of that the Centre must render justice to
Seemandhra before proceeding with the division. The Centre wants to pin
him down to taking a stand and pre-empt him from riding two horses
simultaneously.
This is the
conclusion that can be drawn from the Home Ministry seeking suggestions
from parties on various issues spelt out in the GoM’s Terms of
Reference.
Centre's game plan
The
less charitable inference is that the Centre is resorting to a game of
deferring implementation of its decision on Telangana and bring to heel
the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) which is in no mood to oblige the
ruling party with the offer of merger until passage of a Bill in
Parliament.
On the same plane, the Congress badly
needs to do something to give an impression of broad-based consultations
to its unilateral decisions that have totally alienated the party from
the people in Seemandhra. This is also essential to get wider support in
Parliament for the Constitutional amendment that would be necessary to
deal with Article 371 (D).
Fear among ‘T’ people
Amid
these fast-paced developments, there is fear among Telangana supporters
that the Centre may take the issue back to Square One.
One
indication is the Home Ministry’s individual letters which say that the
GoM will interact with “representatives of your political party”.
The
Congress and the Telugu Desam are sure to depute one leader each from
Telangana and Seemandhra, who will speak in diametrically opposite
voices and add to the confusion.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/centres-move-on-allparty-meet-puzzling/article5303390.ece
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