When the Congress Working Committee adopted a resolution in July 2013 in favour of bifurcation of combined Andhra Pradesh to carve out separate Telangana state, the party hoped that it would get tremendous mileage in 2014 assembly elections in the new state.
But unfortunately, the people of Telangana did not acknowledge the historic decision of the Congress party and voted the Telangana Rashtra Samithi to power in the new state.
The Congress is now down in the dumps. And in Andhra Pradesh, it had to pay a heavy price by not winning even a single assembly seat.
Apparently, the Congress high command has felt that the only it can get back its identity, if not glory in AP, is to pass another historic resolution in the CWC to undo the damage it had to face in 2013.
So, in the same month of July (on July 22 to be precise), the Congress party led by Rahul Gandhi, took a stand in favour of the Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh.
The newly-constituted Congress Working Committee (CWC), which met for the first time under the chairmanship of Rahul Gandhi, passed a resolution to accord the SCS to the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh.
The high command knows according special category status is as sensitive an issue as the Telangana state formation, as it would evoke similar demands from other states.
As expected, the Congress presidents from Bihar and Odisha also demanded that their states should also be given SCS. But former Congress president Sonia Gandhi snubbed them and asked them not raise any objection while according to SCS to AP.
While Sonia said AP had suffered heavily due to bifurcation and no other state should compare with AP, Rahul also said only AP should get the SCS, as it had been promised by then PM Manmohan Singh on the floor of the House.
Now, the question is how far this resolution would help the Congress party, which hardly has any leaders in the state. May be it is expecting return of the senior leaders sooner or later, so that it can gain some strength.
“By taking the decision, Rahul Gandhi had infused a new life into the Andhra Pradesh Congress party,” Rajya Sabha member K V P Ramachandra Rao said.