All Party Meet on Telangana called

The Union home ministry has formally invited two representatives each from the 9 political parties in the state to attend the all-party meeting on Telangana to be held in the national capital on December 28.
The letter, addressed to the presidents and other office bearers of the parties, is signed by additional secretary K Skandan and dated December 11. According to sources, the invitation was faxed to the party offices in Hyderabad.
While indirectly conveying the message that the meeting was not the initiative of the home ministry, the brief invitation laid emphasis on the point that the meeting was being organised at the behest of many MPs. “A number of representations from the members of Parliament have been made to the Union home minister to restart the dialogue on the Telangana issue. Accordingly, it is proposed to convene a meeting on the subject on Friday, the 28th December, 2012, at 10 am at Room No 103, Ist Floor, North Block, New Delhi. It is requested to nominate two representatives from your side to attend the aforesaid meeting. A line in confirmation in this regard would be highly appreciated,” the invitation read.
The invitation was sent to the TRS, BJP, Congress, TDP, MIM, YSR Congress, CPM, CPI and Loksatta. However, the political parties reaction to the invitation were varied. The BJP said the Congress should declare its stance on Telangana before the meeting is held while the TRS described the letter as vague and threatened to boycott the meeting unless a fresh and more clear invitation is sent. The YSR Congress said it was not a recognised party, and hence, has not been invited to the meeting. But home ministry sources said YSR Congress too was invited. The TDP said it is yet to decide on who the two representatives will be. The CPI, which is for Telangana, said it would send state secretary K Narayana and assembly floor leader G Mallesh as its representatives to the meeting. 2 all-party meets ended abruptly

The meeting is being held despite repeated requests from chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana and several Seemandhra leaders to Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to postpone the meeting as it was clashing with the three-day World Telugu Conference slated to be held in Tirupati from December 27 to 29.
However, Shinde had made it clear two days ago that the allparty meeting will not be postponed. Former home minister P Chidambaram had held two all-party meetings in 2010 and 2011. But these meetings were the initiative of the home minister. But the process ended abruptly when the TDP, BJP and TRS boycotted the meeting held on January 6, 2011.
Until last week, when six T Congress MPS forced the UPA government to call for the all party meeting in return for their votes in the FDI retail issue in the Lok Sabha, the Centre had been maintaining that the third all-party meeting on Telangana cannot be held as four of the political parties, the Congress, TDP, MIM and YSR Congress, have not revealed their stand on T.
Pressure is building up in the Congress for making its stance on the issue clear before the all-party meeting is held.