HYDERABAD: Strong indications available from highly placed sources show that the Central leadership has steeled itself to declare its decision on Telangana by the end of this month. And the person who will take the final call will be Sonia Gandhi, with all the other influential figures -- Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and Ghulam Nabi Azad -- having said all they had to say and left it to the Congress president to declare her decision.This has been the single point of clarity that emerged from the consultations the Congress’ core committee members had with the entire leadership of the party and its government in Andhra Pradesh as well as the partisan stakeholders from Telangana and Seemandhra. At the core committee meeting with Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday, the interlocutors briefed her on the situation on the ground and the implications of a decision either way.The highly placed sources said the high command was brought to this stage of final resolve by the unvarnished accounts rendered by the state leaders in their interviews last week. All of them drove home the same point in their presentations: the decision cannot be held back anymore. It’s been two years since the state was set on the boil and more delay would set it back by a decade.The sources said all the state leaders who briefed the leadership were unanimous in stating that no matter which way the final decision goes, consequences and unrest in Telangana and/or Seemandhra are inevitable. And if nothing were done, and the present chaos continued to the next election, a rout of Congress was certain. But if a decision on Telangana is taken now, it would give the Congress two years’ time in which to try and recover some ground.The sources said the high command was also disabused of the notion that further consultations will bring any more clarity to the question. All parties to the dispute have stated their positions ad nauseum and had nothing more to add.The high command functionaries are said to have told the state leaders that they are now ready to brace up for the consequences of any action. Sources said the factors now occupying the troubleshooters’ mind now are not the fallout from Seemandhra or Telangana but the reaction of crucial allies in the UPA.
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