GOM Meeting with Union Ministers Sushilkumar Shinde, Veerappa Moily, Jairam Ramesh and Chief Minister of AP, N Kiran Kumar Reddy at a meeting on Telangana issue in New Delhi on Monday.
The Group of Ministers (GoM) on Telangana, entrusted with the responsibility of finalising the nitty-gritties of creating a separate state, could not complete its work today. The GoM will meet again on November 27.
"Today Mr Chidambaram and Mr Azad were not there and hence we have decided to meet once more next week. We will try to finish or work and bring the bill to Parliament as soon as possible," Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who heads the GoM, told reporters today.
Officially, Mr Shinde may have cited this as the reason for one more meeting, but sources say the status of Hyderabad has been the most contentious issue that the GoM has failed to resolve.
The UPA government is against making Hyderabad a Union Territory and wants to keep it as a common capital of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for the next 10 years.
The GoM also discussed a proposal of a governing council for Hyderabad under the Governor to administer law and order, with the elected representatives of the area assisting him.
However, such an idea was strongly opposed by union ministers from Seemandhra who demanded that Hyderabad be turned into a Union Territory.
Sources say Textile Minister KS Rao and Minister of State JD Seelam met the GoM to convey their displeasure over Hyderabad.
The GoM has tried to speed up their work after the Congress High Command made it clear that the government should take up the Telangana bill in the winter session of Parliament, which commences on December 5 for two weeks.