The Telangana crisis took a new twist today, with Congress and TDP MPs and MLAs, including 11 Ministers, from the region resigning en masse, mounting pressure on the Centre for early creation of a separate state.
Even as Home Minister P Chidambaram counselled patience telling them that the Centre would expedite the consultation process, lawmakers from the region took their campaign to a new level.
In Hyderabad, 39 Congress MLAs, including 11 ministers, resigned from the Assembly along with 34 TDP legislators. The Ministers, however, did not quit the Cabinet as planned earlier.
Seven Congress MPs met Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar in New Delhi and handed over their resignation letters along with that of two other MPs who could not be present. Rajya Sabha member K Keshava Rao met the Officer on Special Duty to Chairman Hamid Ansari and submitted his resignation.
Rao, who is spearheading the campaign of lawmakers from the region, dismissed criticism that the resignation was a “gimmick” and said they were identifying themselves with the people of Telangana, who want a separate state immediately.
“The Centre had on December 9, 2009 virtually announced a separate Telangana state. But it has not been implemented. We have been persuading them. Now, we are helpless before the people of Telangana,” he told reporters.
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Asked whether the MPs would withdraw their resignations, Rao said it could be reviewed if there was a “concrete assurance” from the Congress High Command on the issue within a time-frame.
The Congress has 50 MLAs from the region, while the TDP has 36 and TRS 11 in the 294-member Assembly. Congress has 155 seats in the House.
BJP announced its support for creation of Telangana state and demanded that the Centre introduce a Bill in this regard in the forthcoming Monsoon session of Parliament.