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Telangana issue to the fore

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has raised the separate Statehood issue once again, setting a deadline for the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance government it heads at the Centre to come out with a firm commitment. The TRS has set many deadlines and issued several ultimatums in the past. Obviously with an eye on the elections to the Assembly and Parliament, which are due in 2009, the party appears set to push the statehood issue to the centre stage. The TRS fought the 2004 general elections as an ally of the Congress and joined the UPA government. But its president K. Chandrasekhar Rao quit the Cabinet since he could not have his way with the Centre on carving out a separate State for the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh — something the Congress had agreed, during the 2004 elections, to consider. The Congress line, at least initially, was to refer the issue, along with other demands for new States in various parts of the country, to a second States Reorganisation Commission. Though there was talk recently of setting up such a Commission, there has been no formal announcement as yet. All that the Centre did, under pressure from the TRS, was to constitute a Cabinet sub-committee headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee for going into the Telangana issue, and the committee has not yet given its report.

In the event of the Centre not responding positively to the statehood demand by March 6, the TRS has threatened to get its Members of Parliament and the State legislature to resign en masse. For its part, the Congress has not taken a clear stand. It has done precious little by way of making out a strong case for Telangana before the Pranab Mukherjee committee, nor has it taken any initiative to get the State Assembly adopt a resolution supporting the cause. The State unit of the Congress appears to be divided on the question, with those hailing from Telangana strongly favouring statehood — lurking behind their support is the fear that the TRS might steal a march over the Congress in the elections — and the rest insisting that Andhra Pradesh should not be partitioned. Once the Telangana demand is conceded, the clamour for separate Rayalaseema is bound to arise before long. In fact, the whole issue has to be approached holistically, not from the standpoint of narrow electoral gains or losses. It may be worthwhile to pursue the idea of constituting the second SRC. The new Commission could be asked to evolve general principles on statehood applicable to distinct and specific regions within a State where such demands have been raised.

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