A final call on the Telangana issue will be taken in a month, home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde announced on Friday after a meeting with eight political parties from Andhra Pradesh.
“We have noted all opinions. The government will be briefed on today’s dialogue and a result will come out in a month,” Shinde said, adding that this was the last meeting to resolve the issue of carving out a separate Telangana state from Andhra Pradesh. Two similar meetings — in January 2010 and January 2011 — have failed to reach a consensus.
In Friday’s meeting, differences among the stakeholders were evident. Even within the Congress, views were divergent, with party members Suresh Reddy and Gaade Venkat expressing contradictory opinions.
K Chandrasekhara Rao, chief of Telangana Rashtra Samiti, termed the meeting futile. The party called for a Telangana bandh on Saturday “to condemn the Centre’s tactics”.