Keep Chidambaram away from Telangana panel: TDP MPs

Three Telugu Desam MPs and a former Union Minister have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that the terms of reference of the proposed committee on Telangana are not formulated under the stewardship of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram.

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, they drew his attention to an article written by Mr. Chidambaram in an English daily on May 18, 2003 to the effect that “there is a strong case for the creation of Vidarbha (out of Maharashtra, population 9.67 crore) and Telangana (out of Andhra Pradesh, population 7.57 crore). Uttar Pradesh and Bihar should be further divided.”

The TDP leaders, therefore, wanted that the Centre-State division, presently under the Home Ministry, be immediately transferred to a ‘neutral Ministry’ which did not have “any pre-determined ideas or plans whatsoever on the division of the States.”

The party MPs M.V. Mysura Reddy, K. Narayana Rao and N. Kistappa and the former Union Minister, K. Yerran Naidu, urged Dr. Singh to seriously consider their appeal before taking any step.

They alleged that Mr. Chidambaram did not follow Constitutional and Parliamentary procedures in making the December 9 statement for initiating the process for creating Telangana. His statement was nothing but a breach of Parliamentary system of governance.