T Congress MPs, MLAs, Ministers Ultimatum to High Command
The delegation of Telangana region Congress MPs, MLAs and Ministers shot out a sort of ultimatum to the UPA chairperson Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Caught between an indifferent UPA government at the Centre and growing unpopularity in the region, eight Congress Lok Sabha MPs, one Rajya Sabha member, five ministers in the Kiran regime, 17 MLAs and eight MLCs prepared their resignation letters on Thursday and said they would forward it to the respective presiding officers after July 1 if no positive announcement is made about Telangana by that date.
A decision to this effect was taken at the breakfast meeting held at the residence of party MP K Rajagopal Reddy. Earlier in December 2009 also the T-leaders have submitted their resignation, but they were not in proper format so had been rejected. This time they took care in praparing their resignations In the required format. The letters have been addressed to the speakers of Lok Sabha and state assembly, deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha and chairman of the legislative council.
Those who wrote their resignations included Lok Sabha MPs Manda Jagannatham, Rajagopal Reddy, Suresh Shetkar, Balram Naik, S Rajaiah, G Vivekananda, G Sukhender Reddy, Ponnam Prabhakar, Rajya Sabha MP K Keshava Rao, ministers Jana Reddy, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, B Sudershan Reddy, Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, Basavaraj Saraiah, MLAs Jupalli Krishna Rao, G Venkatramana Reddy, A Mohan, K Laxma Reddy, Ch Mutyam Reddy, and MLCs S Yadava Reddy, Indrasena Reddy, T Bhanu Prasad Rao and S Jagadeeshwar Reddy. D K Aruna, Sunita Lakshma Reddy, K Shanker Rao and R Venkat Reddy, who returned to Hyderabad to attend the cabinet meeting were not part of the resignation episode.
These signed resignations are said to be in the possession of Panchayati Raj Minister K Jana Reddy. He said, "If the UPA government does not make a positive announcement about Telangana by July 1, the letters will be forwarded for acceptance. We will meet on July 1 and announce the date of our resignation. There is no going back on the July 1 deadline." MP K Rajagopal Reddy said "We will begin an indefinite hunger strike from July 5." Interestingly, civil supplies minister J Sridhar Babu was part of the delegation but did not write his resignation letter while industries minister J Geeta Reddy and Rajya Sabha MP V Hanumanth Rao were conspicuous by their absence. Two Lok Sabha MPs from the T region, Madhu Yashki Goud and Sarve Satyanarayana, though were not part of the delegation that went to New Delhi but are reported to have said they too would ready their resignation letters.