With the Congress isolated over the Telangana statehood issue and under Opposition attack for “letting down” the region and its people, party president Sonia Gandhi is now set to endorse the demand for a separate Telangana state during her visit to Andhra Pradesh on February 27-28.

The party, it is learnt, has decided to abandon the move for a Second States Reorganisation Commission which was first mooted by the Congress Working Committee in 2001 and later figured in the party manifesto for the 2004 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections. A Cabinet sub-committee headed by Pranab Mukherjee, tasked to look into this issue, failed to arrive at a political consensus and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) walked out of the UPA in 2006.

The changed Congress stance on Telangana will be spelt out by Gandhi who is scheduled to address public meetings in that region during her visit to the state. “We have already clarified we were never opposed to the creation of a separate state of Telangana. We are committed to it. This is broadly what the Congress president will explain to the people there,” a senior Congress leader told The Indian Express.

While Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy has been opposed to bifurcation of the state, Congress leaders from Telangana have made several representations to the party high command, pleading for Congress endorsement of a separate Telangana. The Telangana region accounts for 15 of 42 Lok Sabha seats and 107 of the 294 Assembly seats in the state.