The Centres state

The Congresss self-inflicted wound in Andhra Pradesh over the Telangana issue continues to make it bleed. On Monday,42 Congress MLAs from the region resigned from the state assembly,including 11 ministers in the Congresss state government led by N. Kiran Kumar Reddy. Thirty-four MLAs of the Telugu Desam Party and 10 MPs also quit. It is not yet certain whether the Andhra Pradesh resignations will be accepted by the speaker,or what effect,if any,they will have on the government. While the immediate problem is political,and most impactful in Hyderabad,the eventual cause and solution are to be found in New Delhi. While it may rage politically,it is at heart an administrative issue which makes it particularly troubling that the Centre has allowed it to grow to this level.

The inactivity of the Centre when it comes to dealing with the Telangana issue is inexcusable. It has been known for some time what the contours of the problem are and yet the government seems to think that,if it looks in the other direction hard enough,the problem will go away. Increasingly clearly,that will not happen. The crisis was precipitated by an ill-thought-out statement in December 2009 that seemed to suggest statehood was imminent; the Centre then backed away,realising that political consensus in the state was hard to achieve. But in the time since then,which has seen the drafting and release of an excellent report that lays out various solutions to the problem,the Centre has not moved forward one way or the other.

After all,the overall problem is well understood. Those from Telangana resent what they see as the dominance of Andhra Pradesh by those from outside their region. The rest of Andhra Pradesh is unwilling to see a Telangana state if that means losing Hyderabad. Simply put,this problem is not going to be solved by waiting,nor has its shape changed since 2009. It needs the Centre to work on an administrative solution,which may involve allowing for a new urban centre,and for an out-of-the-box approach to Hyderabad. In the Srikrishna report,various options for Telanganas autonomy as well as Hyderabads final status were laid out,which could provide the Centre with room to avoid in what may seem to be a zero-sum game. The Congresss own political quagmire in Andhra Pradesh should not have inhibited the Centre from addressing this complex problem.