New Delhi/Hyderabad: In the backdrop of an international bio diversity summit taking place in Hyderabad on October 1, the Telangana Joint Action Committee has called for a huge protest march, threatening to disrupt the summit. The congress is now reaching to Actor turned politician and Rajya Sabha MP Chiranjeevi in order to diffuse the situation.
Chiranjeevi, who merged his party with the Congress is now likely to get a cabinet birth in New Delhi. It's a move that is seen as Congress's effort to consolidate Chiranjeevi's Kapu community votebank, a desperate decision as Jagan Mohan Reddy and the YSR Congress have swept away the traditional Reddy vote base. But as the Congress fights Jagan Mohan Reddy with Chiranjeevi in Andhra Pradesh, the bigger and more immediate challenge is to deal with the Telangana question.
The Telangana JAC has announced a huge protest rally just a day before the bio diversity summit on September 30. For Congress, the urgent question is how will they diffuse the situation from spilling on the streets, all over again, even as the city is being decorated to welcome international dignitaries.
Even the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti, which is the biggest political beneficiary of the Telengana movement now seems to have lost grip over the protestors. The Joint Action Committee for a separate Telengana has according to sources refused to take the TRS into consultations for the protests and TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao is in the national capital trying to coax the Congress into making some announcement to negate the protestors. Sources also say that the TRS has assured the Congress that it will merge with the party if a Telengana is announced.
Given the situation, a fence sitter on the issue till now, the TDP has decided to take a pro-Telangana stand.
With the ball falling back in the Congress's court, there's speculation that the party high command maybe looking to placate tensions by replacing Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy with a face from Telangana or even a symbolic announcement on the issue. The concern though is, will it save the government from embarrassment at the international summit?
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