The midnight move on December 9, to announce the plan to carve Telengana out of an integrated state, came as a total surprise for the country and a shock for the people of the state, both in its timing (midnight) and an arbitrary style of announcement

In effect, it was a unilateral move by the Congress on redrawing the Federal map as there was no sounding of allies in the UPA it leads at the Centre, nor any meaningful consultations with all party leaders in the State. The decision on such a highly emotive issue was apparently taken with the assumption that its own partymen with majority in the Assembly, let alone opposition groups, would meekly accept the high command verdict. Andhra Pradesh has been on turmoil since with widespread agitations in the non-Telangana regions of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.

A politically astute Ms. Sonia Gandhi may have thus committed her second historic blunder, after the hollow claim in 1999 that her party had the numbers (272) to form Government at the Centre. The one-line announcement by the Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram was so decisive that it left no room for ambiguity. It was a sudden turn on a volatile issue on which the Congress high command has dithered for years. Even the Chief Minister Mr. K Rosaiah present in Delhi was surprised by the volte face on the part of the Central leadership.

Now Parliament has come into the picture with the protests by TDP members, joined to the dismay of Congress benches by the party member from Kadapa Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy, son of the late Chief Minister Dr. Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, forcing a brief adjournment. A Government statement was not immediately forthcoming. The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) saw UPA allies like Ms. Mamata Banerjee (Trinamul Congress) and Mr. Sharad Pawar (NCP) voicing strong reservations. All that the CCPA chaired by the Prime Minister has done is to make an appeal to the people of the state to maintain peace and harmony.

The December 9 move of the Congress Party immediately triggered a new wave of demands for separatism across many regions which, in the coming days, cannot be simply wished away. For the present, the Congress takes the stand that Telangana's is a one-off move as this demand dates back to half a century. If the urgency in decision-making was ascribed to the critical condition of the fasting Telangana leader Mr. K Chandrasekhara Rao, on the tenth day of his penance, it belied the stand taken during early days of the fast that nothing would be conceded at “gun-point”. Indeed Mr Rosaiah was told to act firmly to maintain law and order as students in Telangana areas were on the rampage.

For the fasting leader himself, it was an unexpected windfall and rioting students switched on to celebrations. Soon after he began the fast, Mr. Rao was prepared to call it off if invited by Ms. Sonia Gandhi to New Delhi for talks but this was apparently not taken serious note of. With the surprise announcement, Mr. Rao ended the fast happily and conveyed the gratitude of the Telangana people to Ms. Sonia Gandhi. He said now the whole burden of ensuring the fruition of their dream was now “on the shoulders of Ms. Gandhi”.

But violence erupted on a big scale in the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions which observed bandhs and students came out to demonstrate. There were attacks on rail stations and equipment, a few leading party workers went on fast and some suicides were reported. In a politically explosive situation, over 130 MLAs belonging to the Congress, TDP and Praja Rajyam from these regions sent in their resignations to the Speaker of AP Legislative Assembly.

The House, which met on December 7 for a brief winter session, could not transact any business initially because of the pro-Telangana demonstrations, and had to be cordoned off by security forces in thousands when students threatened to storm into the Assembly. With the sudden decision foisted on them, MLAs from the non-Telangana regions began sending resignations en masse and prepared themselves for a long haul struggle. Given the tense situation, after consultations with the Chief Minister, the Speaker announced adjournment of the House sine die.

The MLAs' resignations were followed by some twenty ministers of the Rosaiah Cabinet also announcing their intention to quit and the State for a while seemed to be headed for President's rule. This was ruled out by the Central leadership. Mr Rosaiah in meetings with the groups of Ministers from both Telangana and the other regions finally persuaded them to remain in office and help Government function normally and to await further moves by the Centre.

As Andhra Pradesh goes through an uneasy calm and a period of political uncertainty, which impacts on the business outlook of its cosmopolitan city of Hyderabad, the central leaders have had to embark on a huge damage control exercise. Leaders are coming out with varying degrees of assurances to the people of the three regions. Ms. Sonia Gandhi told a delegation of MPs that the decision was taken in “greater national interests”. What those interests are is left to conjecture.

The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh tried a healing touch to assure agitated MPs that “nothing would be done in a hurry”, let alone the manner of the midnight decision-making. He would be certainly sounding out all parties in Parliament. For his part, the Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, who headed a committee on the issue of Telengana for five years and produced nothing, is firm that there would be no more new states other than Telangana. However, he says, this is subject to a resolution recommending its formation by the AP Legislature.

Indeed, a Congress MP from Vijayawada Mr. L Rajagopal who has sent in his resignation to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha has gone on a fast at Vijayawada. He went to Hyderabad a day earlier to persuade in vain Mr. Rosaiah to move a resolution which, he asserted, would be overwhelmingly defeated by 225 votes in the 294-member House. The Chief Minister, with the adjournment of the House and Ministers deferring their decision on resignations, hopes the state would settle down to normalcy for the present.

Mr. Rosaiah has also been exploring the possibility of a Committee of the Legislature being formed with representation for all parties to discuss all issues related to bifurcation, though, he noted, it would be time-consuming with no strict deadline. This may well become a move which the Centre itself would favour as it cannot make any more unilateral decisions and the prospects of the Assembly being reconvened in the near future to take up a resolution in favour of Telengana are ruled out. The idea of a committee going into the related issues of bifurcation was mooted by the late Chief Minister Dr. Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in February last.

For the present, the central leadership caught in its own blunderous ways is harping on an Assembly resolution as pre-condition for the matter to be taken up in Parliament. At the same time, party spokesmen also keep saying there is no going back on December 9 decision to divide AP to form a separate state of Telangana.

The Telangana leader Mr. Chandrasekhara Rao realises that there would be several hurdles before a separate state could come into existence. He is prepared to wait till 2014, roughly a five-year time-limit. He assures Ms. Sonia Gandhi that Telangana would be solidly behind her to give its quota of MPs at the next elections. Mr Rao himself has gained immeasurably after a series of setbacks and bouts of inconsistency with loss of support for his Telangana Rashtra Samiti in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections for which he had aligned his party to the TDP-led front.

But the TDP leader Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, whose own party got divided over the issue, may be wistfully longing to be the ultimate gainer out of the mess that has been created and in further troubles that could land the party if it proceeds to divide the state. Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy, Congress MP, in making common cause with TDP in the Lok Sabha for protest on December 15, says he did so in order to prevent TDP from making political gains on the issue which is bound to remain volatile for months to come. (IPA Service)