Telangana region has been paralysed for the past week and more by a strike in government offices.
While the Telangana region has been paralysed for the past week and more by a strike in government offices, courts and educational institutions, the state and central governments just remain spectators.
This is because the Congress leadership at the Centre is being pulled in opposite directions by those demanding statehood for Telangana and others who want Andhra Pradesh to remain united.
Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has been holding talks with Andhra legislators and there has been no resolution as such.
Apparently the Srikrishna committee which had submitted a report with six options is being rejected for having offered no clear solution. Azad is likely to submit a report of his own in the matter.
A Congress leader from Andhra who wants the state to remain united, admits rich people from Andhra region had exploited the poor Telangana people but argues that in the process the Andhras had brought much development to the backward Telangana.
“It is a natural phenomenon. The rich exploit the poor, the strong take advantage of the weak. I do not buy the argument that the Andhras have exploited Telangana. There was no other way. In the process, development and change came to the region.”
A native Andhra leader with roots in Telangana argues that the demand for a separate state is orchestrated by the Maoists and warns that the red rebels will take over Telangana once it is formed. The new state will become another Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand, the Congress leader said adding that the Congress cannot be pushed around to balkanise the country.
There is a strong view that home minister P Chidambaram based his December 9, 2009 announcement on the formation of Telangana state on a mistaken intelligence input that in case of a fatal turn to the fast of TRS leader K Chandrasekhar Rao, lakhs of people would turn up and it would lead to a critical law-and-order situation.
The Andhra lobby wants the government to take an unequivocal position on the demand. They feel it will help Congress members who do not want to take anti-separatist stand because of the fear that if the government were to give in to the demand they would be the losers.
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