Telangana: new India state is 60-year dream come true

Hyderabad: Nearly six decades of long struggle, sometimes bloody, by the people of Telangana to have their own state finally appears to have borne fruit.

Bowing its head to strong popular sentiment, reflected in the thousand-odd suicides over the last five years, the United Progressive Alliance has unanimously endorsed the formation of Telangana state.

On a day of fast-paced developments and flurry of meetings in the national capital, the UPA allies met at the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to hear the Congress leadership’s road map for creating what could be the 29th state of India.

The much-awaited development came almost 57 years after a pre-existing Telangana state was merged with coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema to form Andhra Pradesh, the first state to be constituted on the basis of language.

The first clear indication that UPA had made up its mind on the Telangana issue came when Rashtriya Lok Dal leader and union minister Ajit Singh, coming out of the meeting, said that a unanimous decision was taken in favour of Telangana.

But he indicated that Telangana was still a long way to go because there were many issues to be tied up.

The issue will now go before the union cabinet and from there to the Indian parliament, which is meeting from August 5. The union cabinet meeting has been called Wednesday morning but it was not clear whether the Telangana issue will be discussed tomorrow itself.

The reaction to the development was surprisingly muted on the streets Telangana, Andhra and Rayalaseema.

In Hyderabad Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the main force in more than a decade long struggle for Telangana state, has welcomed the decision of the United Progressive Alliance to endorse the proposal of Congress party to form the separate state.

But the party was holding back its celebrations till a more detailed and formal announcement was made by the Congress party after Working Committee meeting later this evening.

“We are happy and we welcome the decision. But we are not celebrating as yet because we would like to wait for the parliament to pass the Bill first. We are cautious because of the credibility deficiency of Congress”, said K Keshav Rao, secretary general of TRS.

Even as the flurry of activity and meetings in New Delhi around Telangana issue reached a feverish pitch, TRS President K. Chandrashekhar Rao was closeted with his party colleagues and aides monitoring the developments in New Delhi. KCR appeared relaxed and confident that the things were going the way he had dreamt ever since he launched the movement for separate state in 2001.

Keshav Rao also made it clear that the TRS will not accept anything less than Hyderabad as the state capital of Telangana. He also demanded that all the injustices done to Telangana all these years including the river water allocation should be mitigated.

Even as the police and the paramilitary forces were keeping a tight vigil, Telangana supporters especially the students had started celebrations in Hyderabad, Warangal and other major towns of the region.

The Congress leaders from Andhra region, especially the members of Parliament, who were making angry threats of resignation in case of division of the state were also desisting from spitting fire.

Congress MP from Vijaywada Lagdapati Rajagopal, who was known for his fiery opposition to Telangana said that he was still hopeful that Congress will not accept the demand for Telangana. “It is not only for Congress to decide. The issue has to go before the cabinet and then Parliament. We will continue our fight to keep Andhra Pradesh united at every level”.

He avoided any direct reply to persistent questions of resignations by the MPs. Earlier in the day 15 anti-Telangana MPs had met party president Sonia Gandhi and other leaders. Apparently Congress leadership had taken all the precautions to ensure that there was no angry reaction to its decision from the MPs and other party leaders from Andhra and Rayalaseema.