KCR likely to skip SZC meeting
Home minister Amit Shah will chair the meet to resolve issues between southern states
Uncertainty persisted over Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s participation in the 29th Southern Zonal Council meeting in Tirupati on March 4, which will be chaired by union home minister Amit Shah.
The Centre convened the SZC meeting regularly to resolve various issues between the states. KCR skipped all these meetings in his first term as CM, from 2014 to 2018.
During this period, the 26th meeting was held in Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh) in December 2015, the 27th meeting in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) in December 2016 and the 28th meeting in Bengaluru (Karnataka) in September 2018. These meetings were chaired by then Union home minister Rajnath Singh.
However, KCR had deputed ministers and officials for these meetings on his behalf.
This is the first meeting being chaired by Amit Shah after he took charge as home minister in May
2019. Since it is being held in the neighbouring Telugu state, it assumed political significance and led to a debate as to whether KCR would turn up for the event.
Though there was never a complete attendance of all CMs in any SZC meeting earlier, the CMs of other states participated at least once. If KCR attends the meet this time, it would be his fourth visit to AP after Jagan Mohan Reddy became the CM.
Mr Rao visited Vijayawada to attend the swearing-in-cermony of Jagan as CM in May 2019 and again in June 2019 to extend an invitation to Jagan to take part in the Kalesharam project inauguration. KCR visited Tirumala temple in May 2019. Mr Rao and Jagan last met at Pragathi Bhavan in January 2020, which was their fourth meeting to discuss on the water sharing disputes and other bifurcation issues. However, disputes cropped up later between both the states over the Srisailam water following Jagan's decision to divert water for the Pothireddy project in May 2020. As no meeting happened between Jagan and KCR since then, it triggered speculations that the bonhomie between them was over.
If KCR attends the SZC meeting this time, it will pave way for his meeting with Jagan after a long time and have discussions to resolve contentious issues between TS and AP.
The SZC comprises AP, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Puducherry as members and CMs of these states have to take part in the meeting to resolve issues between them.