The Congress’ central leadership has at last begun the process of finding a solution to the Telangana issue by holding discussions with Congress leaders from the Telangana region on Wednesday. The Union finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, and the home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, will meet almost all the elected Congress representatives from Telangana separately on Wednesday.

Telangana Congress Ministers, MPs and other legislators are leaving for Delhi in batches. Before leaving, Mr Ponnam Prabhakar, Karimnagar MP and convenor of the AP Congress MPs Forum, told this correspondent, “We will come out with something concrete this time.”

However, there is confusion about what the meeting with the two senior Cabinet ministers will achieve and what solution to the issue could be offered to Telangana leaders. It is not clear whether the deliberations with the two members of the all-powerful Congress Core Committee will be limited to one day or will continue for several days and whether leaders of other regions also will be involved in the dialogue process.

Meanwhile, the Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committee led by Mr T. Sri Ranga Rao stopped some of the MPs leaving for Delhi at the Shamshabad airport on Tuesday evening and submitted a representation urging them to “achieve statehood” at any cost. The Telangana Political JAC chairman, Prof. M. Kodandaram, told the Congress MPs not to return empty handed this time.