New Delhi: Telangana activists were forming a human chain in different parts of the region when the Centre announced the setting up of a five-member committee to look into the political situation in Andhra Pradesh. The terms of reference of this committee, to be headed by former Supreme Court judge B N Srikrishna, will be announced later. Justice Srikrishna had headed the commission on the Mumbai riots of 1992 and submitted that report in 1998.
The reaction among those campaigning hardest for a new Telangana state was cautious. "We want a clear time frame for the formation of Telangana. Nothing short of that will really satisfy us," said Professor Kodandaram, the convenor of the Telangana Joint Action Committee.
What the committee will have to do is reconcile those in favour of a new state with politicians from the non-Telangana regions of Andhra Pradesh, who say they're opposed to the bifurcation of their home.
The BJP was scathing about the committee. "How can a retired judge rule on a political issue like Telangana? This government is weak-willed and that is why these committees are being formed," said the party's Arun Jaitley.
On December 9, after watching two months of daily protests, most of them violent, the government announced that a new Telangana state was sanctioned. Immediately, more than a 100 MLAs from the non-Telangana regions of Andhra Pradesh resigned in protest. This reaction was wholly unanticipated. After all, Andhra Pradesh's major political parties had formally offered their support to Congress Chief Minister K Rosaiah over the issue of a Telangana state.
What the parties hadn't factored in was a split within their own members. Confronted with a huge political divide, they now decided they were not in favour of a Telangana state.
That angered pro-Telangana activists - mainly K Chandrasekhar Rao and his Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS), student groups including those at Osmania University, and elected leaders representing Telangana regions.
The union government finally said it would not proceed on the new state till a political consensus was arrived. This new committee is meant to steer Andhra Pradesh's leaders towards that consensus.