The newly appointed AICC state party incharge Digvijay Singh made it clear that time for taking a final call on the Telangana issue has now come. He however refused to set a new deadline, stating that there were several such deadlines earlier.
Digvijay Singh said his predecessors Veerappa Moily and Ghulam Nabi Azad had already held several consultations and what now remained was decision making. When the media insisted on knowing the date, he said the matter was in a final stage. He however assured that the decision would be satisfactory to all concerned.
He made it (though jokingly) clear that there were only two alternatives. The first being keeping the state united and the second being dividing the state, to create Telangana. Though the media laughed loudly, it is the feeling of the observers that the seasoned leader meant that the Congress High Command was not considering the package and the Rayala Telangana proposals as stated by the media. He said the centre would take a decision keeping the larger interests of the state and the nation in view. He has appealed to all concerned to abide by the decision.
Digvijay Singh said that leaders of both the Seemandhra and the Telangana regions met him and presented their view points. He said he would place their views before the high command.
Stating that the Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, the PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana and the Deputy Chief Minister Damodara Raja Narasimha were also being invited to the core committee meeting to be held in a week, Digvijay Said they were asked to come with road maps on both the alternatives.
Stating division of a state was not an easy matter, he said he had seen the experience of Chattisgarh. Claiming that Congress party’s commitment was for the Second SRC in the 2004 elections, Digvijay Singh said unfortunately Congress could not set it up.
Digvijay said Rahul Gandhi has been reviewing the party position every three months, he said in this regard, he made an effort to gauge the coordination between the party and the government by attending the coordination meeting. He said coordination meetings were functioning in every district. He said kudos to the government by stating that it stood in first place in the implementation of the 20 Point Programme for the last 3 years. He explained that all the welfare programmes of the UPA government were in the 20 points. Stating that the 2014 elections would be a challenge to the party, Digvijay said it was due to the support of the Telugu people that UPA could come into power. He said it was with this gratitude that more number of ministers were accommodated in the UPA2 in the union cabinet.
Digvijay thanked Sonia Gandhi for once again appointing him incharge of AP Congress affairs. He also praised the AP media stating that it was intelligent and active.
