Telangana: Antony, FM may not attend GoM meeting

Two top members of the GoM — defence minister AK Antony who is also the chairman of the panel and finance minister P Chidambaram — are not going to attend the Andhra meeting on Thursday. Saubhadra Chatterji reports.

Two top members of the GoM — defence minister AK Antony who is also the chairman of the panel and finance minister P Chidambaram — are not going to attend the Andhra meeting on Thursday.


While Antony is recuperating from a surgery the finance minister is abroad.

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The venue has thus been shifted to home minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s office. Sources added that the panel will perhaps discuss the list of entities who will be engaged for talks to formulate the division of the state.

Ahead of the meeting, Shinde emphasised that the GoM would do justice to Seemandhra but ruled out any possibility of retreating on the decision to create Telangana.

The home minister was also non-committal on bringing the Telangana reorganisation bill in Parliament during the winter session. “That we will see,” he said, adding that the GoM would submit its report as early as possible.