Shinde deliberately hiding progress on Telangana!?

Many Journos in Delhi are confused with Home Minister Shinde these days. Despite being the head of the GoM, he said to them many times on how the discussions could go over long time and how even before the final GoM meeting, he refused to admit that the meeting would be final. He tried to convey the impression that the GoM is in no hurry. And few hours later, a PTI release says the GoM finalized its recommendations! Earlier, even with regard with placing the bill in Parliament, he did the same. He said he is not sure whether the bill would be placed in winter session whereas, in fact the GoM was working overtime to do so. Today, he neither committed about the GoM report finalization nor about when it would be placed before cabinet. Going by his recent record, it’s not surprising.

Earlier in his briefings, he gave many statements on Telangana and then backtracked on them. After the CWC resolution, he did say that the process would be complete in few months even before the GoM started its work. This received flak from proponents of united AP that Congress is doing this for political gain in a hurry for the next election. BJP and other national parties joined the chorus and accused the Congress of rushing through the process. The Congress managers seem to have corrected their public stances since then and started to convey that GoM is taking all the time it can to address Seemandhra concerns and that they can’t be sure when the Telangana process would be complete as the discussions are going on. Whereas in reality, they have set the target dates for winter session and are burning the midnight oil to place the bill, carve the State and reap the benefits in next elections. And those disputes like river waters, which the Andhra media was repeatedly saying should be resolve before bifurcating the State, the GoM simply seem to have left them for tribunals and to the governments of both new States – Telangana and AP. It would be interesting to see what he would say tomorrow before the cabinet meets. Tomorrow is also the big day for Telangana when it knows the fate of it’s statehood.