No Special Status for Hyderabad in India
Former home secretary G K Pillai said Hyderabad was always considered as part of Telangana and that there was no concrete move to accord a special status for it.
![]()
This at a time when the Telangana debate takes the centre-stage in view of the resignations by nearly 100 elected representatives of all hues from the region.
"Discussions did take place with regard to Hyderabad, but there was no serious consideration to accord it a special status or grant Union Territory status (a la Chandigarh) as it was perceived that would cause more problems than resolve the existing ones," Pillai told TOI on phone from New Delhi. Pillai superannuated last week.
Pillai's statement on December 10, 2009, made in Jammu when he was in the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir to conduct a security review meeting, that Hyderabad would be the capital of Telangana, had generated a controversy, coming as it did a day after Union home minister P Chidambaram announced that the UPA government was ready to initiate the process for the creation of Telangana. Immediately after that, those advocating an UT status for Hyderabad, like Congress leaders Danam Nagender and Mukesh Goud, had come out with statements that Hyderabad had a separate entity and could not be clubbed with the Telangana region.
Following the latest crisis triggered by the resignation by Congress, TDP, TRS, BJP and CPI MPs and MLAs belonging to the Telangana region, the status of Hyderabad has once again come to rattle both the pro-Telangana advocates and the Congress high command which is reluctant to address the issue at this juncture.
"Discussions did take place with regard to Hyderabad, but there was no serious consideration to accord it a special status or grant Union Territory status (a la Chandigarh) as it was perceived that would cause more problems than resolve the existing ones," Pillai told TOI on phone from New Delhi. Pillai superannuated last week.
Pillai's statement on December 10, 2009, made in Jammu when he was in the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir to conduct a security review meeting, that Hyderabad would be the capital of Telangana, had generated a controversy, coming as it did a day after Union home minister P Chidambaram announced that the UPA government was ready to initiate the process for the creation of Telangana. Immediately after that, those advocating an UT status for Hyderabad, like Congress leaders Danam Nagender and Mukesh Goud, had come out with statements that Hyderabad had a separate entity and could not be clubbed with the Telangana region.
Following the latest crisis triggered by the resignation by Congress, TDP, TRS, BJP and CPI MPs and MLAs belonging to the Telangana region, the status of Hyderabad has once again come to rattle both the pro-Telangana advocates and the Congress high command which is reluctant to address the issue at this juncture.
