Pranab, PC role reversal raises eyebrows

All kinds of inferences are being drawn in the political circles here from finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s lead role in sorting out the Telangana logjam and home minister P Chidambaram’s comments on rising food prices at a function here on Wednesday.

All kinds of inferences are being drawn in the political circles here from finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s lead role in sorting out the Telangana logjam and home minister P Chidambaram’s comments on rising food prices at a function here on Wednesday.

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Chidambaram, who is a former finance minister went public with his concerns over spiraling inflation. It is being interpreted by some Congressmen as criticism of Mukherjee. On the flip side, the home minister seems to have denied the Opposition complete dominance of anti-price rise debate by associating with the issue impacting the people.

As for Telangana, which should have seen the home minister performing the role assigned to Mukherjee, the effort apparently is to avoid recall of Chidambaram’s promise in December 2009 of initiating the process (of carving out Telangana from Andhra) that triggered widespread protests in the Congress-ruled state.

Even otherwise, the finance minister is no stranger to the issue under debate now in the context of the Srikrishna Commission’s recommendations. He chaired in the not-too -distant past an internal Congress panel on smaller states.