With the six-decade-old Telangana tangle showing no signs of petering out, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is learnt to have informally proposed a three-point formula to resolve the vexatious issue. 

According to sources, Gandhi has proposed forming a Telangana regional council and Rayalaseema development council, with Guntur getting the status of the capital of Andhra Pradesh. The contentious issue of Hyderabad will be decided after 11 years — till then it will be the common capital of all three regions, according to the Congress’s latest roadmap, the sources said.

Informally, AICC leaders are spreading bits of the information to not only Congress leaders but also the media, in an obvious attempt at gauging the reaction on the political sphere. On Tuesday, party spokesperson PC Chacko told a group of Congress leaders that he has been authorised to share this information on Telangana.

According to sources with knowledge of the development, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy agreed to this “as a policy”, but the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC), which is spearheading the movement for a separate state, did not agree to the proposal.

AICC insiders claimed that this formula was floated primarily to get a smooth sailing for the budget session of Parliament. The proposal would get the state assembly’s stamp if Congress leaders of all three regions of the state — Telangana, Seema and Andhra — agree to it, party sources said.

Visiting New Delhi for two days recently, Kiran Reddy had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is in-charge of the party affairs in Andhra Pradesh and AK Antony, besides Sonia Gandhi. He also paid a courtesy call on President Pranab Mukherjee.
Reddy is believed to have conveyed the three-point formula proposed by Sonia to all top party leaders in Delhi.

The PMO and the union home ministry, meanwhile, have sought Andhra Pradesh governor ESL Narasimhan’s inputs on the situation on ground for more clarity on the issue. The PMO wants Narasimhan to come to New Delhi on February 10 for his help on the ongoing exercise on Telangana issue.