New Delhi, December 16: The Union home ministry’s advice prevailed over political counsel from the Congress’s Andhra Pradesh (AP) MPs to pave the way for last week’s controversial midnight announcement on statehood for Telangana.
The home ministry pressed the panic button based on intelligence reports warning of a possible resurgence of Maoist violence in Telangana around the sentiment for a separate state. It argued in favour of pre-empting a Maoist consolidation in the region by taking the issue off the radar with the announcement of a Telangana state.
With finance minister Pranab Mukherjee away in Jharkhand on that fateful Wednesday when the party’s core committee met thrice before deciding to divide AP, there was no wise political voice to temper the scare scenarios presented.
Home minister P Chidambaram, who has been spearheading the government’s anti-Maoist drive, had an open field to push his ministry’s assessment. Mukherjee flew back in time for the final late-night meeting of the core committee but the mood had already swung.
The indications were there earlier in the day when a group of non-Telangana MPs met Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel and the Congress’s pointperson for AP Veerappa Moily. The MPs warned of a backlash against the creation of a Telangana state but they were told “kuchh to karna padega”, disclosed a senior leader.
When AP exploded the next day, the same MPs were called for further consultations with the entire galaxy of leaders, Sonia Gandhi, prime minister Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee. The finance minister seemed quite upset that he had not been kept in the loop about the prevailing mood in the regions outside Telangana.
As the political divide in AP deepens, creating a crisis in all political parties especially the Congress, there has been almost universal condemnation of the hasty and clumsy manner in which the Telangana statehood decision was taken. There should have been wider consultations in the state and with national leaders and stakeholders, feel most political parties and Mps from other regions in Andhra Pradesh. But Moily maintained to DNA that it was a “calibrated” decision.
The home ministry certainly seems to have prepared its case well and the core committee bought into Chidambaram’s persuasive arguments. The intelligence inputs about growing Maoist activity were buttressed by Tuesday’s pro-Telangana violence in Osmania University, which led to a virtual police takeover of the campus. A police official was shown on Telugu television channels talking excitedly about disruptions by “radicalised students” with “pro-Maoist” leanings.
There was another intelligence report that warned of Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief Chandrashekhar Rao’s rapidly deteriorating health, despite the intravenous drip being administered in hospital.
The home ministry also produced a political report from the state government that claimed all party support for Telangana. The report contained minutes of an all party meeting that AP chief minister K Rosaiah held on December 8 at the behest of the home ministry.
Later, when the state erupted in flames, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu said they had notexpected that these consultations would form the basis for a central government decision on Telangana. “We said that our party would support a resolution that would be brought to the state assembly,” he said.
As usual, Mukherjee has been drafted to clean up the mess, although he had all along advised caution on the Telangana issue. By instructing the AP Speaker not to accept the flood of resignations from MLAs and getting the state assembly prematurely adjourned sine die, Mukherjee has set in motion steps to buy time in the hope that passions will die a natural death.
–Agencies–