By IANS
New Delhi/Hyderabad : An apprehensive Congress Wednesday appeared to backtrack on a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) for Telangana after Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MPs and legislators threatened en masse resignations if New Delhi did not take a final decision on the issue by March 6.
The Congress, Andhra Pradesh’s ruling party, however, did not clarify whether it would support a separate statehood for Telangana region.
“A statement from the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) had clarified that there would not be a second SRC,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters in New Delhi.
“If there is a consensus among the bigger parties in any particular state, then the state can be divided without an SRC being formed,” he added.
Singhvi’s clarification came days after the Congress general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh, M. Veerappa Moily, stated that there would be a second SRC to look into the demands of separate statehoods for Telangana in Andhra Pradesh and Vidarbha in Maharashtra.
Moily, however, later claimed that the second SRC would not refer to Telangana.
But the party spokesperson evaded questions on whether the party has given its consent for the formation of a separate Telangana state, which was one of the promises the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had made in its Common Minimum Programme, the agenda for governance.
“Consensus has to be formed,” Singhvi said.
Earlier in the day, TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao told a news conference in Hyderabad that if the government failed to initiate the process for separate statehood to Telangana by March 6, all TRS members of parliament and the state legislature would quit office.
“If this does not happen we will go to the people’s court and expose how the Congress party is cheating the people of Telangana,” he said.
TRS has four members in the Lok Sabha, 16 in the state assembly and three in the legislative council.
KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, demanded that the Pranab Mukherjee-led ministerial committee on Telangana submit its report immediately.
He alleged that the Congress had not made its stand clear on the issue before the committee while all other parties had spelt out their stand supporting the demand for a separate state. According to him, the ambiguous stand of the Congress was responsible for the delay in the committee submitting its report.
The Congress’s nervousness over the political situation in Andhra Pradesh was explicable.
Irked over Moily’s statement, many of its MPs from the Telangana have threatened that they would resign en masse if the government goes ahead with the SRC, which they claim is just a tactic to avoid granting statehood to the impoverished northwestern region in Andhra Pradesh.
The electoral prospects in Andhra Pradesh that sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha is crucial for the Congress at the national level. As its support base in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka has shrunk considerably, the legislative support from Andhra Pradesh is vital for the party to shore up strength in New Delhi.
The MPs from Andhra Pradesh have been playing a key role in national politics during the last decade.
The Telugu Desam party (TDP) played a decisive role by extending outside support to the former National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
When the results of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections in other big states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were disappointing for the Congress, 30 seats from Andhra Pradesh had been decisive for the party.
TRS, which KCR launched after quitting the TDP in 2000, had fought the 2004 elections in alliance with the Congress. It won five Lok Sabha seats and 26 assembly seats and joined the Congress-led coalition governments both at the centre and in the state.
KCR, who along with his then deputy A. Narendra, served as union ministers, had promised supporters to achieve separate Telangana within a year. On several occasions, he set deadlines before the UPA but failed to get any concrete assurance.
Irked over the delay, TRS pulled out of the coalition in the state in 2005 and quit the central cabinet in 2006.
A revolt by 10 legislators against KCR and a human smuggling scandal involving some of TRS leaders dealt a blow to the party. Last year, Narendra was expelled from the party for his alleged involvement in the scandal.
However, the recent statement by the Congress about the second SRC has infused new life into the TRS and its movement for a separate state.
The demand for separate statehood to Telangana, which comprises 10 districts including Hyderabad, is more than four decades old. The region, which was part of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, was merged with Andhra State to form a united state for Telugu-speaking people in 1956.
The region witnessed a violent agitation for a separate state in 1969. More than 300 people were killed in the violence. The movement was revived by TRS in 2000.
The region accounts for 42 percent of the state’s area and 40 percent of the state’s 77 million population.