Telangana Cong: What Next?

After a fruitless meeting with Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday, Congress leaders from the Telangana region expressed feelings of hurt and humiliation.

Even as Telangana MLA Shankar Rao and MP V Hanumantha Rao tried to downplay the quick exit of P Chidambaram from the meeting (who reportedly excused himself after a mere 20 minutes, saying he had a Lok Pal Bill meeting to attend to), the rest of the team there was quite disappointed.

Some ministers are now ready to resign for their cause (although interestingly there is no consensus among the Telangana delegation on the issue of resignations - one minister said resignation would only be the "last resort"), and there are even reports of leaders planning to confront Sonia Gandhi with a deadline.

This deadline business, however, has not gone down well with Congress leaders hailing from the Seemandhra regions. J C Diwakar Reddy said it was "wrong" for the Telangana team to give deadlines to the High Command. He expressed confidence that Sonia Gandhi would come to a decision well-thought-through, and that she would take into account the interests of the country as a whole.

There are also concerns being raised about how competent the delegation that went to meet Chidambaram was, and whether it is even capable of voicing concerns effectively and as a team.

The ministers gained nothing from their talks with Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday night, and it remains to be seen what their meeting with A K Antony on Friday will yield.