Hyderabad:
To ensure that Lok Sabha Congress MPs from Telangana voted on the FDI issue on Wednesday, Union home minister SushilKumar Shinde agreed to convene an all-party meeting on the Telangana issue. The meeting has been scheduled for December 28 in New Delhi.
This is the first major step by the Union government towards reaching a consensus on the Telangana issue.
If all the parties agree, it might be decided during the meeting to go ahead with the formation of a Telangana state, if not, then it will be status quo.
The Congress, heading the UPA government at the Centre has so far not announced its stand on the issue, except when P. Chidambaram, as home minister, had made his now-famous announcement on December 9, 2009, stating that the process of formation of a Telangana state had been initiated.
The announcement had been followed by Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra leaders submitting resignations en masse, threatening the fall of the state government, which ultimately for-ced the Centre to change its stand on December 23, 2009.
The Central government, after convening an all-party meeting on January 5, 2010, had announced constitution of the Justice Srikrishna Committee to study the situation in the state and submit its report.
