After the release of the Justice Srikrishna report on Telangana, the Congress leadership is gearing up to face a long drawn battle on the issue even as the bifurcation of the state is not on the mind of the party leadership, say highly placed sources in the Congress.
Sources say that the party while looking at a long term solution to the issue would consider giving more administrative and political control to the Telangana region along the lines suggested in the Sri Krishna report. The immediate need to bring in a deputy chief minister from the region would also be seriously considered to dampen down heightened feelings and emotions of the people, MPs and MLAs from the party
A senior functionary said the party leadership understands the compulsion of the MPs and MLAs to take a strong stand on the issue and accordingly enough leeway would be given for them to make their point and express their sentiments, however strongly they may do so, without attracting the charge that they are acting against the party line.
Some of the MPs have threatened to commit
A meeting of the core committee of the congress would be held on Friday where the options discussed by sri Krishna would be taken up along with the fallout of the report and how to politically manage the issue and let time heal the wounds. The congress, known to string matters along without taking a decision would once again be hoping that the carefully articulated options by the committee gives them time to play along and bring other parties around.
The trs, the tdp and the bjp did not attend the meeting called by home minister p.chidambaram but the home minister has sent copies of the report to these parties and he has said he is hopeful that they would come around and attend the next meeting which would be held to discuss the issue.
