Once again raising serious doubts over the Congress party’s commitment to accord statehood to Telangana, Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Thursday said the decision could go “either way”.
Giving new hope to the Seemandhra camp, which is moving heaven and earth to stall the Telangana process, Shinde said his party’s soon-to-be-taken decision on the T-issue could be “this way or that way”. He was speaking to mediapersons in Delhi on Thursday.
Asked if the decision will come before the commencement of Parliament’s monsoon session on August 5, he said the final decision will be taken very soon.
Manohar meets Sonia: Meanwhile, Speaker N Manohar called on AICC supremo Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Thursday.
During the 20-minute meeting, he is understood to have submitted vital information on the mood of the party legislators from different regions.
Manohar’s meeting with Sonia assumes significance as the reports emanating from Delhi suggest that the AICC leadership might ask the state to move a resolution on the Telangana issue in the Assembly soon after the Congress Working Committee meeting, which might take place in the next 10 days.
The Speaker, earlier in the day, also met Sushilkumar Shinde. Manohar was in Delhi to attend a conference of Commonwealth presiding officers.
He met AICC state affairs incharge Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday.
Sources disclosed that during these meetings, the AICC top brass tried to feel the pulse of the Seemandhra Congress MLAs in the event of Centre asking the state to move a resolution in the Assembly favouring statehood to Telangana.
It is learnt that as the Congress high command does not want to risk a repetition of the en masse resignations by Seemandhra MLAs, witnessed a day after the Centre’s announcement on December 9, 2009.
Meanwhile, Telangana Congress MPs Palvai Govardhan Reddy, Madhu Yashki Goud and Ponnam Prabhakar met AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad in Delhi and tried to know the line of thinking of thier party leadership.
Deputy chief minister C Damodar Rajanarasimha left for Delhi on Thursday night. According to sources, Rajanarasimha, who had held discussions with MLAs of MIM, which is backing “Rayala Telangana” proposal, might convey their views to his party leadership.