The Hindu : Front Page : Manmohan: working on solution to Telangana

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Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009
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Manmohan: working on solution to Telangana

J. Balaji

To discuss the issue with Cabinet colleagues today

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday assured a 10-member MPs team from Andhra Pradesh that he would hold discussions with his Cabinet colleagues and try to find a solution to the Telangana issue by Tuesday.

The MPs, belonging to both Houses of Parliament, are from the coastal and Rayalaseema regions.

Dr. Singh agreed to a suggestion that discussions be held with intellectuals and elders and consensus arrived at, after the heat generated by the protests for and against the creation of Telangana State died down, according to Eluru MP K. Sambasiva Rao.

The former Union Minister and Rajya Sabha member from Andhra Pradesh, T. Subbarami Reddy, told The Hindu that Dr. Singh said he would sit with his colleagues after the Rajya Sabha concluded its session on Tuesday and try to convey some message to the people of Andhra Pradesh to bring back normality.

Mr. Sambasiva Rao said Dr. Singh “understood that it is a grave situation” and agreed with the MPs on the need to find an early solution. Though the team pressed for the continuation of a united Andhra Pradesh, it did not say anything against the demands of the Telangana region, he said.

Dr. Singh was briefed on the situation in the coastal and Rayalaseema regions, where schools and colleges were closed and buses and other vehicles off the road. “We told them that if it is not resolved soon, then the situation may go out of control,” Mr. Rao said.

The former Pradesh Congress Committee president and Rajya Sabha MP, V. Hanumantha Rao, urged the State government to shift Vijayawada Lok Sabha member Lagadapati Rajagopal, who is now in NIMS, Hyderabad, to Guntur or any other hospital in the Andhra region as his presence in the State capital would aggravate protests against him.

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