By IANS,
New Delhil : Conscious of the contentious nature of Telangana statehood issue and plans for the national anti-terror hub, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde Monday steered clear of these issues, promising to consult all stake-holders before arriving at decisions.
At his first press conference to provide his ministry’s monthly report for August, Shinde was asked what his views were on the issue of National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and Telangana, two key issues that are pending since the tenure of his predecessor P. Chidambaram, who was made finance minister late July.
Shinde has been home minister for the last six weeks, having taken over the reins of the ministry early August.
“Yes, I am going into the details and I am going to discuss with all the states,” the home minister said to queries about the NCTC, which is pending since March this year, when it could not come into force despite a central notification on the issue.
“First let me discuss with the chief ministers and then we will take a decision. It (NCTC) is a good move, but we will have to take into confidence the states also,” he said.
Following the government notification for setting up the NCTC earlier this year, chief ministers of at least 11 states ruled by both United Progressive Alliance and National Democratic Alliance constituents had opposed the move. The centre held a meeting of all chief ministers in May to discuss the NCTC, but a consensus could not be arrived at.
On the issue of Telangana, Shinde said he had met with parties from the different regions of Andhra Pradesh but the issue had to be handled “carefully”.
“This issue has been going on for a very long time. I heard them very carefully, both sides from Telangana and the other side. We have to handle the issue very carefully,” he said.
Political parties in Andhra Pradesh that support the Telangana statehood have announced their plan to restart their agitations from this month end with a ‘Chalo Hyderabad’ march on Sep 30.
Chidambaram, who had virtually announced the central government’s intention to have Telangana state in December 2009, later formed a panel under Justice Srikrishna committee that went into the statehood demand and submitted its report in January this year.
But since then political consensus has eluded the government on this issue, with the Congress party from Andhra Pradesh still not making up its mind on the statehood for the region.