Most non-Congress parties in state including the Left have already written off as another “exercise in futility” unless the Centre brings clarity to the issue. The meeting was convened by the Home Minister, under relentless pressure from Congress MPs from Telengana, agitating for early decision on a separate state, including a threat of abstention in the crucial vote on FDI in retail.

With both the ruling Congress and opposition Telugu Desam party TDP of Mr Chandrababu Naidu having their own Telengana protagonists within, and each of the nine parties asked to send two representatives, Mr Shinde would let opinions flow freely. He would issue a new appeal to the parties to await a decision in the not distant future. Whether this would satisfy the lead agitator, Mr Chandrasekhara Rao, MP, heading the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), who had dubbed the meeting as a “farce”, remains to be seen.

For, Mr. Rao himself is under challenge from an extremist faction, the Telengana Joint Action Committee, which had sponsored a series of mass agitations, and has set December 28 as the deadline for all Telengana MPs and MLAs to resign, depending on the outcome at the New Delhi meeting. The 12 Congress MPs of Telengana have already threatened to quit the party in the absence of a decision to create the new state.

Mr Chandrasekhara Rao has told Congress MPs who defect that they would be offered the same Lok Sabha seats to contest next time. Earlier, Mr. Rao had offered to merge his TRS with the Congress if their demand was accepted. Telengana MPs who had also waited on Ms. Sonia Gandhi were reportedly told on her behalf that the party was planning to rejuvenate itself in AP and a decision on this long-standing issue would be taken in that context “at the appropriate time”.

More recently, a group of Telengana MPs met the Prime Minister and urged that some clear direction should be forthcoming at the all-party meeting. There were conflicting reports in Hyderabad on whether the Centre would firm up its mind on Telengana before the Dec.28 meeting so that an indication could be given by Mr Shinde. Ms. Sonia Gandhi has to take a call on whether the Telengana issue should be settled ahead of the party’s rejuvenation being undertaken.

New Delhi reports suggest that the Congress core group may discuss Telengana immediately after the winter session of Parliament, a few days ahead of the all-party meeting. The A P Governor Mr ESL Narasimhan had a series of meetings on his two-day visit to New Delhi (Dec 13 and 14) with the Prime Minister and the Home and Finance Ministers on the State’s affairs. He is believed to have apprised them of the latest political situation which must have figured largely when he called on Ms. Sonia Gandhi, Congress President and UPA Chief, and in meetings with Union Ministers Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mr Vayalar Ravi, in charge of AP affairs. Mr Narasimhan denied that his visit to the capital had political overtones.

The Congress has a vital stake in Andhra Pradesh which, under the leadership of late Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy since 2004, had provided the highest number of Lok Sabha seats for any state in 2009. The party was also voted back to office in the state. But neither the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, badly split between separatists and other partymen insisting on “samaikyandhra” (integrated state) nor the Telugu Desam, for that matter, can hardly project a composite view at the forthcoming New Delhi meeting.

Mr Chandrababu Naidu, on a ‘padayatra’ covering hundreds of miles since October 2, in a bid to recapture power which has eluded him for 14 years, has been insisting that the Congress, the major party in power at the centre and state, should first spell out its stand. He suspects the Centre’s procrastination as a political game to put opposition parties at an electoral disadvantage. Mr Naidu, while walking through Telengana districts, said he was not opposed to forming a new state. There is some disarray in TDP and its executive is meeting called to clarify TDP stand.

That Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy, twice elected MP from Kadapa, has been in jail custody since May last facing trial on CBI chargesheets in cases of allegedly illegal amassing of wealth, has not made any difference to the build-up of his party now headed temporarily by Mrs. Vijayamma, wife of the late Chief Minister. Her daughter Sharmila had completed 58 days of her padayatra by December 15 evoking impressive response even in Telengana districts.

Andhra Pradesh is virtually going through a pre-poll campaign with these competitive padayatras of TDP leader Mr. Chandrababu Naidu and of Ms. Sharmila, sister of Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy for the YSR Congress, and these leaders have been offering various sops to farmers and other sections with write-off of loans and free supply of power. TRS leader Mr Chandrasekhara Rao is confident that Telengana cannot be held back once 15 MPs and 100 MLAs from Telengana get elected in 2014, “wiping out” the Congress in the region.

The Telengana agitation was first spearheaded by the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) of Mr K Chandrasekhara Rao, MP, who had gone on a prolonged fast in 2009. After hurried consultations in the Congress core group, there was an ill-conceived announcement on December 9, 2009 by the then Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram that the process for formation of a separate state was being initiated. This touched off widespread violence all over Andhra Pradesh with mass resignations of MLAs, violence and damage to public property.

Mr Chidambaram had to step back and summon a series of meetings of all parties in the State, and finally set up the Sri Krishna Commission whose report a year later came up with a series of alternatives. None of its suggestions found acceptance from the Telengana leaders and the Centre quietly shelved the report. The Seemandhra Congressmen have urged that the matter should be referred to a second States Reorganisation Commission, which the Congress had proposed in its Lok Sabha poll manifesto.

The nine recognised parties invited to the New Delhi meeting on Dec.28 are AP Congress, TDP, YSR Congress, (all the three having adherents both for and against bifurcation), TRS, BJP, CPI, (favouring a separate state), and CPM, MIM (Muslim Majlis) and Lok Satta (against division). Mr Jayaprakash Narayan, the Lok Satta leader is of the view that Telengana should be part of a “comprehensive and amicable solution addressing all issues”. Ms. Vijayamma of YSR Congress may not attend the New Delhi meeting. (IPA Service)