By IANS,
Hyderabad: The main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh Wednesday decided not to attend the all-party meeting called by Home Minister P. Chidambaram on the Srikrishna committee’s report on Telangana.
TDP chief and former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu sent a letter to Chidambaram, informing him of the party’s decision. Naidu said there was no need for TDP to send any representative to the meeting.
Chidambaram has called a meeting of eight parties from the state for consultations before making public the report of the Srikrishna committee, which looked into the demands for and against a separate Telangana state.
The five-member panel headed by former Supreme Court judge B.N. Srikrishna submitted its report to Chidambaram Dec 30.
Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have already decided to boycott the meeting, saying it was aimed at provoking divergent views on Telangana and thus drag the issue.
The ruling Congress party, Praja Rajyam Party (PRP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) and Lok Satta are sending their representatives to the meeting.
The decision by the TDP came after its leaders from Telangana mounted pressure on Naidu to boycott the meeting to send the right signals to the people of the region.
The Congress leadership Wednesday began efforts to placate its MPs from Telangana, who have threatened to resign if the report was against the formation of Telangana state.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and state Congress chief D. Srinivas were also in the national capital to discuss the possible fallout of the report with the central leaders.
The Srikrishna committee was set up in February to study, among other things, the situation in Andhra Pradesh following protests for a separate Telangana state and the counter-protests that paralysed the state.
The committee met over 100 groups including political parties, intellectuals, politicians and retired bureaucrats and visited all the 23 districts of the state.