congress core committee to discuss telangana

Core Committee on Friday
to take a final call on laying roadmap
for Telangana

Cabinet Secretary to head
TASK FORCE  TO LAY ROAD MAP
FOR TELANGANA

By R Rajagopalan


Core Committee of Congress on Friday
is expected to take a final decision on
Telangana roadmap. Two days Wednesday
and Thursday were spent on a individual
discussions by P Chidambaram

He has prepared a fact sheet of the
all party meeting. Chidambaram is expected
to brief the Core Committee.

Many suggestions were floated to ascertain
the formulation of a body be it committee or
task force or commission, but the one which
has discussed at length was a task force
with cabinet secretary.

Formation of a Task force
to lay roadmap for formation of Telangana
prominently figured at the K Chandrasekhar
Rao meeting with P Chidambaram on
Wednesday in New Delhi

But tomorrow (Friday) evening when
the core committee meets there shall be
a prsentation by the Home Minister
P Chidambaram. Till such time, everythinglooks
 fluid, said the same sources.

According to highly placed official
sources Centre is expected to announce a
high power Task Force headed by
Union Cabinet Secretary with six other secretaries
Home, Law, Justice, Rural Development, Petroleum

and
in the next couple of days it  would receive representations
from the people and not the political leaders
in Telangana and also in Rayalaseema and Andhra
And it would submit a report in three months.

Discussion with the Home Minister it was
decided that the committee would start receiving
applications and representations from various
people before handing over a report.

During the meeting with Home Minister
P Chidambaram  TRS Chief
K Chandrasekhar Rao made it clear that
the general opinion of the public was that
their views were not being taken into account.

"Why should only the political leaders have
a say in the matter? The general public too
should be given a chance to submit their
opinion on the matter," he said.

Further, the TRS chief also told the Home
Minister that a time frame to form the state
ought to be set, but the maximum the people
are willing to wait is months and not years.
The process involving the formation of a
separate Telangana state will
rest largely with the general public rather
than the political leaders, according to
Telangana  Rashtra Samiti general secretary
Subhash Reddy

Once the committee is set up, the Home and
Cabinet secretary would receive applications,
opinions and representations from leaders of the
various Joint Action Committees, Teachers' Unions,
Students' Unions and prominent members of the
general public.

These associations or unions will have to
collectively seek the opinion of the general
public and present it before the committee.

Once this process is complete, the report
would be submitted to the Union government.

Based on the representations and depending
on the majority voice, the government would
take necessary action. If the majority is in
favour of Telangana, then a Bill would have
to be placed in the assembly, debated by the
MLAs and then passed. However, it is likely
that there would not be any opposition to the
Bill if the majority voice seeks for a separate
state.


ends