Having ensured the passage of the Telangana Bill, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's main concern now is to see there is no tension in the state and that the decision is accepted amicably by the people of Seema-Andhra following reports of simmering anger in this region over the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
The Telangana Rashtriya Samiti, spearheading the Telangana statehood movement, rejected a fresh appeal by Home Minister P Chidambaram to participate in Thursday's meeting to discuss the Justice Srikrishna report, even as Congress held hectic parleys with its leaders from Andhra Pradesh on ways to deal with the situation.
Members belonging to the ruling Congress and Telugu Desam Party tried to disrupt the customary address by the Governor to the joint session of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature on Monday by raising slogans for and against the bifurcation of the state.
The leaders of the Opposition INDIA bloc are meeting on Monday morning ostensibly to redraw their strategies to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP both inside the Parliament and in the electoral arena.
A day after tendering their resignations, Congress ministers, members of Parliament and members of Legislative Assembly from Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday met senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and are understood to have demanded an early decision by the Centre on the separate state issue.
The Congress party's reported proposal to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh has those not in favour of the move, especially in the Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra regions, up in arms.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government of acting in an "irresponsible and childish" manner on the Telangana issue and maintained that delay in formation of the state would harm the interest of both Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana region.
The Governor of Andhra Pradesh accepted the resignation of Infrastructure Minister K Venkat Reddy on Wednesday. Reddy who is a member of Legislative Assembly from the Telangana region had submitted his resignation to Governor, Narasimhan on October 2.
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday took a swipe at critics, saying they may remain happy with their arrogance, lies, pessimism and ignorance but people should be beware of their divisive agenda as an old habit of 70 years cannot go away so easily.
The Centre on Saturday said it will convene a meeting of political parties of Andhra Pradesh to discuss the Telangana issue only when it gets to know the views from all of them. Home Minister P Chidambaram said four political parties in Andhra Pradesh -- Congress, Telugu Desam Party, Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and YSR Congress -- are yet to make up their mind about their stand on Telangana.
The deadlock in the Andhra Pradesh assembly is likely to end on Monday, when the Telangana Bill will finally be presented in the House.
As the news of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's proposed press conference in Delhi on Monday came out, political activity in Andhra Pradesh picked up.
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
Home Minister P Chidambaram said four political parties in Andhra Pradesh -- Congress, Telugu Desam Party, Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and YSR Congress -- are yet to make up their mind about their stand on Telangana.
The ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh has remained unfazed over Thursday's developments in which senior party leaders decided to join the Telangana Rashtra Samithi over the separate statehood issue.
Madhu Goud Yaskhi, a Congress MP from the Telangana region, is an avowed advocate of a separate state. The NRI-lawyer-turned-politician who won a second term in 2009 from Nizamabad, spoke to Neerja Chowdhury candidly on where matters stood and what could be the way forward.
Notwithstanding vociferous opposition, the government is expected to table the Telangana bill in Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Congress leaders from Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh have become hyperactive ahead of the December 9 deadline they have set for the high command even as Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has been called to New Delhi later this week.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Repeated disruptions in Lok Sabha by Congress members from Andhra Pradesh over Telangana issue and suspension of eight MPs saw Bharatiya Janata Party and Left parties hitting out at the government for this unprecedented situation while the ruling party justified its stand.
Anti-Telangana activists on Sunday held protests on railway tracks here delaying at least two long-distance trains, the police said.
A final decision on the contentious Telangana issue would be taken after detailed consultations with leaders of both Telangana and Seemandhra regions at an 'an appropriate time and place,' Union Health Minister and Congress in-charge of Andhra Pradesh affairs, Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Saturday.
What are the political equations, the challenges, and the threats?
The Congress high command is constantly holding consultations with all concerned to find an amicable solution to the Telangana issue, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah said in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
The bill to create Telangana is likely to be introduced in Parliament on Tuesday.
In a fresh drama, Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly speaker Nadendla Manohar has rejected the resignations of all the 101 MLAs from the Telangana region.
"We are preparing a note to pass a resolution in the Cabinet. After we finalise the note, it will be sent to the Law Ministry for legal vetting. I hope the note will be presented before the Cabinet within 20 days," Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters in New Delhi on Monday.
Disruptions on issues such as Telangana, atrocities on Sri Lankan Tamils, sub-quota for minorities, and shortage of fertilisers on Monday marred President Pratibha Patil's Address to the joint sitting of Parliament.
Long queues were seen at outpatient department ticket counters in government hospitals, where senior doctors joined their junior colleagues in the protest.
The Union Cabinet, which recently cleared the note on the formation of Telangana and paved the way for the creation of the new state, will do its best to ensure that the process is completed by December 9, when the chief minister of the state is likely to be sworn in.
Congress leaders from Telangana region on Tuesday refuted former Andhra Pradesh governor N D Tiwari's comments that protagonists of statehood were behind allegations of sex scandal against him, saying the remark further eroded his prestige.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah will be visiting New Delhi on Wednesday amid mounting pressure on the Congress to resolve the Telangana issue.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
In a major set back to those opposing the state's bifurcation, the Andhra Pradesh high court has struck down a petition questioning the creation of Telangana.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy's opposition to the formation of Telangana is no secret. During his deliberations with the Congress high command in New Delhi on Tuesday, he had made it clear that he was not in favor of the formation of Telangana, and he is capable of handling the situation in the wake of pro-Telangana protests. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
With fresh violence over Telangana statehood in Andhra Pradesh, the Congress on Thursday indicated if things failed to normalise early, it would delay a solution to the vexed issue.
Wednesday is a historic day for the 2.8 crore voters from Telangana as they exercise their franchise for electing the first government of the new state that will formally come into existence on June 2.
After Governor of Andhra Pradesh ESL Narasimhan emerged from a 45-minute meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, a source indicated that they both had held key discussions on the current political situation in the state.
'The feeling in Telangana is that without her a separate state cannot be created... All the MPs and MLAs from Seema-Andhra have a business background. Their interest is to save their business,' Congress MP K Raj Gopal Reddy, who played a key role in Thursday's turbulent events, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
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