Centre to convene all-party meet on Telangana

• To allay apprehensions on bifurcation issue

• Cong Core Committee also discusses issue

Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has decided to call an all-party meeting on Telangana. Principal political parties from Andhra Pradesh would be invited for the meeting. Letters inviting the political parties would be sent out soon, he said. The meeting was likely to be held before the November 7 meeting of the Group of Ministers, constituted to look into the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, he said.

"The meeting will discuss various provisions of the terms of reference of the GoM and give suggestions." The GoM, which met twice, has already held discussions regarding the sharing of river waters, power, distribution of assets and demarcation of boundaries. Headed by the Home Minister, the ministerial panel has also discussed the approach and methodology to be adopted by it. The decision came after Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde met President Pranab Mukherjee in the morning and briefed him on the developments relating to carving out the separate state of Telangana. Later, the Congress Core Group also discussed the issue.

The all-party meeting could be held as early as in the first week of November. The urgency shows that the Centre is keen to wrap up the process of creation of Telangana at the earliest, in time for the Bill to be taken to parliament during the upcoming Winter Session. The government wants to clear the air over the apprehensions that the Centre is proceeding unilaterally in the matter. Already, there have been several complaints that neither the Antony Committee set up by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, nor the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up by the Union Cabinet has come to Hyderabad.

There is a feeling that the Congress is treating the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh as its own internal party affair. Even as the all-party meeting was called before the decision on Telangana, another allparty meeting after the decision is being called, in order to get all the principal political parties on board in the process. It assumes significance as Seemandhra Congress leaders have been constantly complaining to the President that Constitutional guidelines on the creation of new states were being given a go-by. Shinde is understood to have explained to the President that there is no departure from the laid down Constitutional process.

It was only recently that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had addressed a letter to Pranab Mukherjee that to proceed with the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, without a Resolution being moved in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly was unilateral. Similarly, senior Seemandhra Congress leader Vundavalli Arun Kumar sent a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee, insisting that the process for the formation of new state should be initiated through a Resolution in the concerned parent state Assembly.