Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh said on Friday that the process of consultation is over on the Telangana issue, and the time has come for a decision. ?We now have to await the decision of the party and the UPA government,? said Singh, in-charge of party affairs in Andhra Pradesh, after holding separate meetings with chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, deputy chief minister Damodar Rajanarasimha and state Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana.
Kiran Kumar Reddy and Botsa Satyanarayana, in their separate reports, are understood to have opposed any move to divide the state while Damodar Rajanarasimha, who is from Telangana, has backed the statehood demand.
Earlier, three Congress MLA and 16 MLAs of Jagan Mohan Reddy?s YSR Congress resigned on Thursday evening, demanding a united Andhra. TRS senior leader T Harish Rao has alleged that the Congress and the YSR Congress had conspired to stall the Telangana process. However, it is reliably learnt that the Congress senior leaders had given clear indications to the chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and the PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana that state division was inevitable.
The problem for the Congress is that there is a deep divide within parties ? and indeed within its own leaders from Andhra Pradesh ? on whether to split the state. The state consists of three regions ? Telangana, coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.
?The government is not announcing any decision keeping in view the polls,? a source said. The decision may be announced on July 31 or before August 5 with the onset of the monsoon session of the Parliament, the source added.
In December 2009, the Centre said it would sanction the demand for a separate state. Later, the government backtracked. Months of violent protests followed from the other two regions, forcing the government to suspend its decision. Andhra Pradesh has 42 Lok Sabha seats.
The Centre reportedly wants to move two districts from Rayalaseema to Telangana. By including Anantpur and Kurnool in the new state, the number of parliamentary constituencies will be equally divided between the new proposed state and the existing one.