Antony heads two panels on AP

Highlights

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday formally set up four-member Antony Committee to hear from the Seemandhra leaders the concerns arising from the decision to form the separate State of Telangana. While Union Defence Minister A K Antony, who is a member of the Congress Core Group and the CWC, is the chairman, the other members are Congress president’s Political Secretary Ahmed Patel, Union Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily and AICC general secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijay Singh.

  • One is on State bifurcation and includes Digvijay Singh, Veerappa Moily and Ahmed Patel
  • Second panel is on Manifesto Implementation for AP

Venkat Parsa

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday formally set up four-member Antony Committee to hear from the Seemandhra leaders the concerns arising from the decision to form the separate State of Telangana. While Union Defence Minister A K Antony, who is a member of the Congress Core Group and the CWC, is the chairman, the other members are Congress president’s Political Secretary Ahmed Patel, Union Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily and AICC general secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijay Singh.

Sonia Gandhi has also constituted a Manifesto Implementation Committee for Andhra Pradesh. The Chairman will be Defence Minister A K Antony and the members are Union Minister of State in PMO V Narayanasami, AICC General Secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh Digvijay Singh, APCC president Botcha Satyanarayana, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, AICC secretaries R C Khuntia, Thirunavu- kkarasu, Shantaram Naik and A Chella Kumar attached to Digvijay Singh, Vundavalli Arun Kumar and Andhra Pradesh Minister J Geetha Reddy. However, Dy CM Damodar Rajanarasimha was missing from the panel. AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi made the announcements of the two committees.

Congress Spokesman P C Chacko said Antony Committee would function towards the implementation of the decision on Telangana. It would sort out all the issues related to the decision on Telangana, so that it could be implemented.
The Seemandhra leaders on Wednesday met at the residence of Lagadapati Rajgopal. K V P Ramachander Rao, Magunta Srinivasul Reddy, G V Harsha Kumar, K Sai Pratap, Ananta Venkatram Reddy and K Bapi Raju, besides the Andhra Pradesh Ministers and MLAs who landed up in the capital, also attended the meeting. The broad discussion centred round the representation to be made to Antony Committee.

The objective behind setting up Antony Committee is to take on board the concerns and apprehensions of the Seemandhra leaders and address the same. But the Congress High Command is firm that the decision of Telangana is irrevocable. All that Antony Committee can do is to allay any apprehensions of the Seemandhgra leaders on specific issues like revenue and water-sharing, Hyderabad and generation and distribution of electricity.

Palvai Goverdhan Reddy met Janardhan Dwivedi and later accused Congress leaders Renuka Chowdhury and J D Seelam of supporting Seemandhra TDP MPs. He said there was need for an early implementation of the CWC decision on the creation of Telangana.

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