The Union government is singularly inept in handling sensitive issues that require careful handling. After the justice B.N. Srikrishna committee recommended against the creation of a separate state of Telangana, the matter should have ended. Both Union and Andhra Pradesh governments should have doused the flames. And for all purposes, the violent tempers in that part of the country had cooled.
Sunday’s protests and the clashes in Hyderabad tell a different story. Clearly, the people of the region and legislators—local and those from Parliament—sense that as elections approach, there may be some sort of political compromise on the subject. The central leadership of the Congress party has done nothing to end this speculation. It should have.
At this moment, India call ill-afford another weak state that will require extensive financial help from the centre, as Telangana surely will. But in the matters of political survival, questions of national interest take a back seat.
