Even as the Congress Working Committee was planning to hold a meeting to take a call on Telangana, political temperatures across the State shot up with 12 MlAs from the Rayalaseema and Andhra regions resigning from the Assembly on Thursday. They include 11 MlAs of the YSR Congress and one of the ruling Congress.
While Congress MlA from Kamalapuram Veerasiva Reddy quit both the Assembly as well as the party, the 11 YSRCP MlAs sent their resignations to Speaker N Manohar through fax in protest against the attempts to bifurcate the State.
“All the MlAs of the Rayalaseema-Andhra regions should resign to prevent the division of the State”, Veerasiva Reddy demanded at a Press conference in Kadapa. He sent the resignation from the membership of the Congress to State party president Botsa Satyanarayana.
The move came at a time when the top three political figures of Andhra Pradesh - Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, State Congress president Satyanarayana and Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha - have been summoned to New Delhi by the Congress leadership for yet another round of consultations on Friday ahead of the CWC meet.
At the same time, the Ministers from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions were also packing their bags to reach New Delhi to build pressure against any move to bifurcate the State. The Ministers decided to meet the Union Ministers and MPs from their region in New Delhi and ask them to quit in case of party High Command takes a decision in favour of Telangana State.
According to sources, the meeting decided that the Ministers will tender en masse resignation like they had done after the announcement by P Chidambaram on December 9, 2009.
The Seema-Andhra Elected Representatives Forum convener and Minister Shailajanath said that the meeting decided to take tough decisions in case of any adverse decision. Two other Ministers, TG Venkatesh and E Pratap Reddy, said that those who will not accept the decision of the party High Command will resign after the State’s division was announced.
The YSRCP MlAs, who sent the resignations include Gurunath Reddy, B Srinivas Reddy, M Chandrashekhar Reddy, Shobha Nagi Reddy, N Prasann Kumar Reddy, Amarnath Reddy, Srikanth Reddy, P Ramakrishna Reddy, M Karunakar Reddy, Srinivasulu and K Ramachandra Reddy. The YSRCP has 17 members, including party honorary president YS Vijayalakshmi in the State Assembly. Other members were also likely to follow the suit.
However, party spokesperson Gattu Ramchandra Rao said that the resignation was individual decision of the MlAs and the party had not taken any such decision.
“On the issue of bifurcation, the Congress is not thinking about the interest of the State but of its own political interests,” said B Srinivas Reddy. He condemned that the State was being divided for the sake of votes and seats by the Congress.
Meanwhile, the Joint Action Committee of Andhra Pradesh Non-Gazetted Officers Association (APNGO) has given a call to lay a siege to the residences of the Ministers in Andhra and Rayalaseema regions on July 29 in protest against the attempts to break the State.
A round table meet of the organisation in Vijaywada on Thursday decided to organise a big demonstration in New Delhi and another major programme in Hyderabad.
Congress MP from Telangana Gutta Sukhinder Reddy urged the leaders from the Seema-Andhra regions to stop their threat of resignations. He alleged that the APNGO and pro-AP Joint Action Committee were trying to provoke the people. “Such conspiracies will be counter productive for them,” he warned.