Centre decides to delete clause 14 (f)

HYDERABAD: The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA), which met at the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday evening, recommended to the President to delete the controversial Clause 14(f) from the Presidential Order to make Hyderabad a part of Zone VI.The meeting, chaired by Manmohan Singh and attended by Union Ministers AK Antony, Salman Khursheed, Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah, Trivedi, Chidambaram and Alagiri, discussed the letter written by Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy requesting the Centre to take steps for the deletion of the clause. The CCPA also deliberated upon Home Minister Chidambaram’s recent statement that it was imperative to have another Assembly resolution on Clause 14 (f). But, sources, said the CCPA veered round to the view that there was no need for another resolution as the same Assembly had earlier called for the deletion of the clause. The move came after Kiran Kumar Reddy talked to the Prime Minister over phone and requested him to delete the controversial Clause at the earliest. He had said much the same in his letter to the Centre recently. TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, who was in the national capital, welcomed the decision and urged President Pratibha Patil to expedite approval.Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member V Hanumantha Rao hoped the clause would be deleted before the conduct of the SIs’ written examination slated for August 13-14. He also appealed to the Seemandhra leaders, who had been opposing deletion of the clause, not to create new hurdles in the interests of the candidates concerned.