An all party meeting on the issue of Telangana is likely to held in the first week of February.
An indication to this effect was given by government sources after the Congress top brass including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi deliberated on the issue at the party's core group meeting.
Earlier there was an impression that the meeting would be held before the Republic Day, but the sources said that the consultations within the Congress were not yet over and would take some more time.
The meeting of the core group also attended by Home Minister P Chidambaram came on a day when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy met the Prime Minister for the first time after the release of the Justice Srikrishna Committee on the issue of Telangana.
Amid conflicting demands, Congress high command is treading with caution on the issue of separate Telangana.
The leadership appears sandwiched between conflicting demands from party leaders from Telangana and non-Telangana regions on the issue of separate statehood.
Senior leaders of the party here had earlier held separate meetings with MPs from Telangana, coastal Andhra and Rayalseema regions in last few days to find a way out of the continuing deadlock over the issue.
However, with both sides sticking to their stands, the party finds itself in a bind over the issue. "It's a very complicated issue and we will have to handle it with utmost care" is the refrain of central leaders.
More than 20 Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs from coastal and Andhra and Rayalaseema regions had a meeting with top party leaders Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony and unanimously favoured a united Andhra Pradesh saying this was also the sixth and last recommendation of the committee.
The committee had given six options including keeping Andhra Pradesh united with Constitutional statutory powers to the Telangana region and carving out Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.
On January 12, Mukherjee had held a meeting with a group of 14 party MPs from Telangana in which the members had made it clear that there was no alternative to a separate state.
