Capital blunders add fuel to T-fire

New Delhi, Dec. 11: A veritable “Operation Telangana Mess-Up” continued for a third consecutive day on Friday with flip-flops by the Centre and the Congress party on this issue creating an atmosphere of uncertainty in major states.

While the Union home secretary, Mr G.K. Pillai, did a volte face on his earlier reported comment that Hyderabad was the obvious choice for the capital of the proposed Telangana state, reports from Andhra Pradesh said elected representatives at different levels of the political pyramid resigned from their posts in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions to protest against the “unilateral decision” of the Congress to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.

A panic-stricken Congress and the government leadership was in the midst of a damage control exercise on Friday with every move that spoke of a separate Telangana state countered by back-tracking and panicked assurances to angry MPs from the state that no step to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh would be taken in haste.

In effect, a standstill in government. Ironically, the term standstill is not new to what is now AP, though it was used in a very different sense in 1947 when a temporary “Standstill Agreement” was signed on November 29 between the then Dominion of India (Union of India) and the then princely state of Hyderabad though the Nizam of Hyderabad had not till then agreed to accede to India.

In Jammu, home secretary G.K. Pillai on Friday waded into controversy, saying Hyderabad would be the capital of the proposed Telangana state but retreated hastily when his remarks created a huge flutter in Andhra Pradesh. “Hyderabad, I think, will always be the capital of Telangana,” Mr Pillai, who was on an overnight visit to Jammu, was quoted as telling reporters after a security review meeting. A little later, Mr Pillai issued a clarification saying he did not state that Hyderabad would be the capital of Telangana.

“In response to a question from a journalist that the proponents of a state of Telangana wanted Hyderabad to be its capital, the home secretary had stated that this was what they wanted. The issue of the capital for the proposed new state of Telangana, for which steps have been initiated, is a matter that is to be decided by consensus, and by the government,” a Union home ministry spokesman said in a statement in New Delhi.

But Mr Pillai’s remarks infuriated MPs from Andhra Pradesh. “We go by what the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) and Congress president Sonia Gandhi say, and not by Pillai, superintendent of police or a clerk... Let the home secretary give a separate Telangana if he is capable,” Congress MP K.S. Rao told reporters in Parliament House.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of the Lok Sabha and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee tried to pacify party MPs from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions. They called them separately to tell them the government would not take a decision in haste.

While the Central leadership is passing the buck on to the Andhra chief minister, suggesting the state will not be split if there is no unanimity in the Andhra Assembly, it is unable to provide a convincing answer to why Union home minister P. Chidambaram made a statement initiating the process of a separate Telangana state.

The Telangana crisis has completely exposed the Centre and Congress managers. “This shows that we do not have crisis managers. Apolitical leaders took a political decision, bypassing the CWC. On the nuclear deal issue, the highest decision making body was taken into confidence,” insiders pointed out. The issue appears to be turning into a political football match with the state government and the Congress giving clear indications that they were in no hurry. After the PM assured agitated Congress MPs from non-Telangana regions of Andhra Pradesh that nothing would be done in haste, AICC leaders are also adopting the same line against a backdrop of growing unrest in Andhra and resignations by several MLAs and MPs.

A panic-stricken Congress and the government leadership was in the midst of a damage control exercise on Friday with every move that spoke of a separate Telangana state countered by back-tracking and panicked assurances to angry MPs from the state that no step to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh would be taken in haste. In effect, a standstill in government. Ironically, the term standstill is not new to what is now AP, though it was used in a very different sense in 1947 when a temporary “Standstill Agreement” was