Upset over the ruling Congress and UPA’s decision to create Telangana, seven Congress MPs from Andhra Pradesh Friday quit Parliament, with indications that some more were likely to resign soon.
The MPs, who put in their papers, were A. Sai Prathap (Rajampet constituency), Anantha Venkatarami Reddy (Anantapur) C.V. Harsha Kumar (Amalapuram-SC), Vundavalli Arun Kumar (Rajahmundry), Lagadapati Rajagopal (Vijayawada) and S.P.Y. Reddy (Nandyal).
While these MPs tendered their resignations to Lok Sabha secretary general T.K. Vishwanathan, the lone upper house member, KVP Ramachandra Rao, submitted his resignation to Rajya Sabha secretary general Shamsher K. Sheriff.
The MPs said that three more Lok Sabha members from the state — Sabbam Hari (Anakapalli), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (Ongole) and Rayapati Sambasiva Rao (Guntur) — had also faxed their resignations.
The MPs claimed that central ministers from Andhra Pradesh would meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Saturday and then tender their resignations.
They said they had sought an appointment with Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar as per norms that the Speaker, who has to accept their resignations, has to be satisfied that they had taken the step on their own free will and not under duress.
The resignations came a day after Congress Union ministers and some MPs from Andhra Pradesh held a meeting at the residence of KVP Ramachandra Rao late Friday night.
At the meeting, the Union ministers are understood to have counselled the MPs not to resign saying that after the Congress high command’s decision on Telangana formation, it would focus on Andhra’s future development.
However, the MPs felt that the situation has still not gone out of hand and by tendering their resignations, they can force the government to hold back its decision.
Some of them were also of the view that the issue could be raised effectively in Parliament by stalling its proceedings when the Monsoon Session begins from Monday.
An indication that the protest over the decision on separate Telangana is expected to hot up was given by Union minister Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy, saying that Union ministers from the Seemandhra region planned to resign.
Reddy said the ministers have sought appointments with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during which the resignations would be given.
At Friday night’s confabulations at Ramchandra Rao’s residence, four of the total eight Union ministers from Seemanhdra were present. They included M.M. Pallam Raju, D. Purandeshwari, Killi Kruparani and J.D. Seelam.
S.P.Y. Reddy was not present when his resignation papers were submitted to the Lok Sabha secretary general. Reddy is out of station.
The MPs, however, said that they have sought an appointment with Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar so as to ensure that the resignation process is duly followed. “We will go through the procedure properly,” one of them said.
The action showed that the MPs were especially agitated over the issue of Hyderabad with one of them, Arun Kumar, insisting that all the regions have “equal rights” over the city.
Asked whether the MPs want Hyderabad to be turned into a Union Territory, Kumar avoided a direct reply but said “people at the helm should decide as people of all regions have equal rights over Hyderabad.”
Kumar said this was perhaps for the first time that the capital itself was being separated from the original state.
Another MP Rajgopal argued that the Union government should not take into account the views of any political party on the issue of Telangana and should go by the Srikrishna Committee report, which, Kumar said, is a “national report.”
“TDP, CPI, BJP, Congress may have given their views on the Telangana issue but still Union government cannot go on the basis of the views of the parties and should go by the Srikrishna report,” Kumar said.
The MPs also dismissed the claim that what was being achieved through the decision on separate Telangana was de-merger of the region from Andhra Pradesh. “This is totally untrue. There was never a state called Telangana,” Arun Kumar said.