New Delhi, December 23 2009: In a move that would suggest that the question of a new state of Telengana is being put on the back burner, the Centre today said there was a need to hold wide-ranging consultations with all political parties and groups in Andhra Pradesh on the issue because the situation in the state had changed.

"Government of India will take steps to involve all concerned in the process," Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said in a statement here, exactly a fortnight after he had announced on the night of December 9 that the process of carving out the new state out of Andhra Pradesh would be initiated.

He had also said that an appropriate resolution on the formation of the new state would be moved in the Andhra Padesh state legislative assembly.

The December 9 announcement had come at a time when an agitation launched by the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) was threatening to spin out of control.

TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao, 55, had been on a fast unto death in Hyderabad for 11 days at that time, forcing the Centre to speed up its efforts to defuse the crisis.

In today's statement, Mr Chidambaram said the December 9 announcemet had been made after the receipt of the minutes of a meeting of all political parties convened by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah on December 7, when a consensus had emerged on the question of formation of a separate state of Telengana.

"However, after the statement, the situation in Andhra Pradesh has altered.

A large number of political parties are divided on the issue.

There is a need to hold wide ranging consultations with all political parties and groups in the State," he said.

Mr Chidambaram said that, meanwhile, it was necessary that peace and harmony were restored in Andhra Pradesh and the State Government was allowed to focus on governance and development.

"The Central Government appeals to the people of the different regions of Andhra Pradesh and to all political parties and students to withdraw their agitations and maintain peace, harmony and brotherhood," he added.

The Home Minister's latest statement as several groups, both for and against Telengana, have launched agitations to push their respective demands.

Some of the parties which had recently supported the demand for Telengana later changed their stance.

Scores of legislators in Andhra Pradesh sent in their resignations in protest against the move to divide the state.

Even within the Congress, Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) from the coastal and Rayalaseema regions opposed the move.

On December 11, a delegation of Andhra Pradesh had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was understood to have assured them that the Centre would not act in haste in the matter of creating the new state.

The MPs told Dr Singh that the mood in the state was for it to remain united.

The Centre's December 9 announcement on Telengana had also sparked off similar demands from those campaigning for Gorkhaland in West Bengal, Bundelkhand and Harit Pradesh in Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha in Maharashtra and Maru Pradesh in Rajasthan.

Many of the protests in Andhra Pradesh have got to do with the status of Hyderabad, which falls in the Telengana region.

While those demanding the creation of Telengana assume it will be the capital of the new state, people in other parts of Andhra Pradesh are not willing to let go of the city.

And then there are those who have suggested that Hyderabad should be made a Union Territory.

Telengana is that part of Andhra Pradesh which corresponds to the Telugu-speaking part of the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad, which lies on the Deccan plateau to the west of the Eastern Ghats.

It includes the districts of Warangal, Adilabad, Khammam, Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda, Rangareddy, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Medak and Hyderabad, the capital.

Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1956 and in the years that followed there were growing complaints in the Telengana region that the promises made to them had not been kept.

These finally led to a students' agitation in 1969 that was marked by widespread violence and the deaths of scores of people.

The demand for a separate state was kept alive in one form or the other and in 1971 some leaders left the Congress to form the Telengana Praja Samiti, but they later returned to the party.

In the 1990s, the National Democratic Alliance government at the centre could not take a decision on the issue because of the stand taken by its coalition partner Telugu Desam Party.

The TRS was formed with the single point agenda of creating a separate Telengana state with Hyderabad as its capital.

In the 2004 elections to the Lok Sabha as well as the State Legislative Assembly, the Congress struck an alliance with the TRS with the promise of a separate state.

The Congress came to power in Andhra Pradesh and the party led the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the Centre, with the TRS as one of the coalition partners.

Mr Chandrasekhara Rao also joined the Union Government as a minister, but the Union Government remained indecisive on the issue, forcing the TRS leader to withdraw his party's support to the UPA Government in September, 2006 .

Telengana was an issue ahead of the General Elections this year and all the major parties in Andhra Pradesh came out in support of the cause.

The Congress returned to power both at the Centre and in Andhra Pradesh and the alliance of which TRS was a part lost badly in the state.

On September 2, then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who had returned to power with a convincing mandate, died in a helicopter crash.

Mr Rosaiah, who took over as Chief Minister, is not considered to be politically tough the way the late Mr Reddy was and this, many believe, encouraged Mr Chandrasekhara Rao to start his indefinite fast in late November demanding the formation of a separate Telengana state.

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