Telangana and Sri Krishnam Report - Uncertainity Continue

Justice Sri Krishna Committee which is not a commission under Commission of Enquiries Act, but an internal Home Ministry committee has submitted its report in time as promised to the Ministry. Though we do not know what they have reported we must congratulate them on a time bound action. The Home Minister has arranged on 6^th Jan 2011 and called all the local political parties in AP for consultations. It is inconceivable that Congress leadership does not know what is there in SK Report now. So this attempt to listen to the local political opinion afresh without even giving the report in to them advance or without allowing them time to think about the report seems to be an idea to put blame on what ever happens on local parties like TDP. It is quite strange that the political parties from AP will not have any time to study and react to the report which will be voluminous.  One more thing is to call two people from each party which will result once again in division of the opinion.

One wonders if Chidambaram and Congress are once again playing too smart like December 9^th for their own good.  If the Home Minister and Congress want an alibi to take any decision he is not going to get and political parties from AP are not going to provide that to him. Already KCR and TRS made clear that will not be attending this meeting. KCR obviously don’t want to be part of consultations which may end up not giving Telangana state. If Telangana is not given now he can take a high ground in any future agitation and elections by not taking part in the present consultations. Already Telengana leaders from TDP are urging their party to boycott the meeting. PRP is saying that only one person from each party should be called. So the meeting on 6^th Jan 2011 may not even be attended by important factions.

Present government in AP may last till some decision by Congress on Telangana or till it enjoys pleasure of Jagan.  Jagan is waiting for a suitable time for successful action of removal of AP Government. But he will prefer it to fall on its own and if Congress accepts formation of Telangana without clear SKC report then that will provide required pretext to his supporters to quite their seats in the assembly thereby bring down the government in AP. He may or need not stop at that. We need to remember Non-Telnagana regions have 22 Congress MP’s in Lok Sabha whereas Telangana region got just 11 Congress MP’s. This 22 will be under threat from public and will be forced to quite due to public pressure and Delhi Government may fall as a result. Jagan may force this matter at least to teach a lesson to Congress for continuous attacks on him from the old retainers of the Italian family. Even today V H Hanumatha Rao attacked Jagan and insulted him on TV.

There are also reports that Sharad Pawar is trying to mediate between Congress central leadership and the Jagan group now.

The division of the state requires resolution from the AP assembly. The constitution says that it is required to obtain the opinion of the house which in turn means voting. Naturally any resolution for the division of the state will be defeated in the assembly. It may not be compulsory for the Parliament to accept the decision of the state assembly and Parliament can decide for the division against the wishes of the state assembly.

But here is on clear catch. The division may also end up in Supreme Court. It had held at the time of the Gujarat state formation that the consent from the State Assemble is not compulsory and only its opinion is need and state can be divided against the wishes of Assembly. But this very old position is taken when the center government is more unitary in nature and the India was still under formation. The division of united Maharashtra State was on the basis of language and all over India such states were formed at the same time. So there is some basis for the division of the state. The present constitutional condition is towards more federal structure and there is no pan Indian basis or rule under which Telangana can be given. So any case before Supreme Court may not be an open and shut case and Gujarat decision may even be reviewed by it. More important thing is the basis of the division of the state. SKC may provide some basis for division. But if it does not, then how can the Union Government justify the division of the state in any court.  If the court asks - What is so special about Telangana when such demands are there everywhere in the country? – What answer Delhi can give?