NEW DELHI: Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday declared the government's intent to set up a committee to go into the gamut of issues relating to the formation of the 29th state of Telangana, which was announced on Dec. 9.
The move is seen as a desperate bid to stave-off a political crisis looming in Andhra Pradesh, with the all-party Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) deadline expiring on Thursday for a concrete statement on the creation of separate State of Telangana; failing which all the ministers, MPs and MLAs from the Telangana region threatened to resign. In a clear bid to avert the political crisis, with Telangana leaders threatening to resign on Jan. 29, on the eve itself, Chidambaram declared the government intent to go ahead with the process.
The entire burden of the exercise is to hammer out a political consensus on the creation of Telangana. This is necessary for the Andhra Pradesh Assembly to pass the necessary Resolution recommending for the division of the state into Telangana and Andhra. Presently, in the 294-member Andhra Pradesh Assembly, 175 MLAs belonging to the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions oppose the creation of Telangana, outnumbering the 119 MLAs from the Telangana region. Since the creation of a new state involves a constitution amendment bill being passed by Parliament, a consensus is inescapable. The entire exercise is aimed at creating the political consensus on the issue of separate statehood for Telangana.
As part of the process, Chidambaram is mulling a committee as the mechanism promised at the all-party meeting in Delhi on Jan. 5 to lay down a road map for consultations on the Telangana issue.
Chidambaram said: "We are almost at the end of concluding that exercise. If all goes well, we should have a committee by the end of this week. We will announce the committee by next week."
He, however, declined to discuss the names under the consideration of the government. But he made it known that the government has more or less finalized the names and the final touches will be given by the end of this week. "Perhaps by the next week, the committee will be announced," he said.
What is at stake is whether it should be a committee headed by a serving or retired judge or whether it should be an experts committee. The contours would be revealed only when the committee is announced next week.
