The Congress core committee, which meets here on Friday, is likely to take a decision on the Telangana issue that has created a crisis situation in Andhra Pradesh for the past three weeks.

Indications are that the core committee will back the Telangana creation and leave it up to the government to work out the modalities. Congress leader, who wanted to remain anonymous as the issue is very sensitive, said Sonia Gandhi had told the core committee meeting last week that the party can not go back on its word to give a separate state to the people of Telangana.

Gandhi reportedly cited the Congress commitment on Telangana in the party's poll manifesto in both 2004 and 2009 as also in then president APJ Abdul Kalam's address to parliament and the government's own commitment on the floor of the Lok Sabha.

Sources said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also consulted two former Chief Justices of India and two Governors and they all were found supporting a smaller state from the better administration point of view.

The Home Ministry has prepared a status paper on 20 days of the Telangana agitation for consideration in Friday's coordination committee meeting while Home Minister P Chidambaram will provide further inputs in the meeting.

Core Committee however might have taken a call but the stance of the UPA2 might be totally different and expected to be contradictory.

"Why alone Telangana? We shall push for six other smaller states, the demand for which is pending with the Centre," a top Congress leader said, giving a perspective on the government's inclination to carve out a separate state of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.

The new state, however, may not be born in near future if the government tags its creation with the demand for other states like Vidarbha in Maharashtra and Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh.

The emerging government strategy is to hold further consultations with the political parties as also leaders from Andhra Pradesh, both supporting and opposition Telangana, and then convene an all-party meeting towards end of the month after Diwali for a consensus.

It may lob the idea of the smaller states' creation in this meeting and stress that this would take time as formalities like resolutions from the concerned state assemblies are to be completed before the process can be set into motion.

Sources said such a move will shield the government from the charge of acting under pressure of agitations as it can defer the piecemeal creation of Telangana until the process is completed for creating other smaller states. Much more excitement in Congress is that once BJP takes a centre stage in Telangana the communal card the party expected to play is causing immense concern, in the AICC and also partly in PMO. BJP bent upon creating hype and momentum on Telangana just to pinch and irritate AICC and PMO.