M A I N   N E W S

Resignations of MLAs start pouring in
Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, July 3
The moment of reckoning has finally arrived for Telangana protagonists. The process of resignations by elected representatives of the region was set in motion today with four rebel Telugu Desam Party MLAs putting in their papers. The ruling Congress MPs, MLAs and MLCs from the region will submit their resignations tomorrow, a move that is bound to trigger a showdown with their own government. The en masse resignations are aimed at forcing the UPA government to concede the demand for a separate Telangana state.

Despite intense damage-control efforts by the Congress high command, the Telangana leaders stood firm on their decision to quit their

posts, saying they were coming under increasing public pressure to resign for the sake of the statehood cause.

The first batch of resignations came from four rebel TDP legislators N Janardhan Reddy, Harishwar Reddy, Venugopala Chary and Jogu Ramanna who are on a hunger strike here demanding a separate state. They sent in their resignations from the hunger strike camp. Hectic political activity continued in the ruling party camp with Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and state Congress chief B Satyanarayana holding a series of consultations with the Telangana ministers in a bid to persuade them to drop their resignation plans. However, their efforts have gone in vain with the Telangana MPs and legislators reiterating that they would go ahead with their resignations. The Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s political adviser Ahmad Patel asked them to wait for the Centre’s decision, but they appeared to be in no mood to budge. In fact, they have given the central leadership time till 11 am on Monday to come out with an announcement on initiating the process for formation of separate state in line with the statement made by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on December 9, 2009.

A team of party MPs left for Delhi to submit their resignations to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari tomorrow. The legislators including Ministers will submit their papers to the Assembly Speaker N Manohar while the members of the Legislative Council will hand over their resignations to Council chairman K Chakrapani.

The Telangana region accounts for 119 seats in the 294-member Assembly and 17 MPs out of the total 42 from the state. The Congress has 12 MPs, 50 MLAs and 12 MLCs from the region. On their part, the Telangana TDP MLAs also decided to resign soon after their Congress counterparts quit their posts. The TDP has 30 MLAs from the region.

“We are not aiming for by-elections with our resignations. We want to trigger a Constitutional crisis which will force the Centre to carve out the Telangana state”, a TDP leader said.

Telangana TANGLE