TRS threatens to pull out of UPA govt

Five TRS ministers quit Cong-led Andhra pradesh govt, Congress deputes Digvijay Singh to deal with crisis.

The violation of the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) common minimum programme became the theme of yet another ally. Five out of six ministers from the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in the Congress-led Andhra Pradesh government submitted their resignations to Governor Sushil Kumar Shinde this afternoon.

The immediate reason for their resignation was the threat to their lives from Naxalites following the TRS's inability to get any commitment from the Centre regarding a separate Telangana state.

In Delhi, Union Labour Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao threatened to pull out of the UPA government at the Centre if the party failed to receive a "satisfactory" response on the issue of separate Telengana state.

"We will decide to stay in the UPA or not after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and seeing their response to our demand," Rao said.

In Hyderabad, Transport Minister K Santosh Reddy, who also belongs to the TRS, however, remained defiant and stayed away from the resignation episode.

Today's action comes in the wake of Rao's meeting with the state TRS ministers and other important leaders at New Delhi yesterday on the course of action to be followed in the aftermath of increased Naxal threat to party leaders.

Santosh Reddy kept away from this meeting too whereas the state Technical Education Minister N Narasimha Reddy, the fifth minister to follow suit, sent his resignation through fax from Detroit, the US, where he is currently on a tour.

Even though the immediate provocation for their decision to quit the government has been the recent killing of top Janasakti Naxalite leader Riaz by police, which made matters worse for the TRS, these minister squarely blame the alleged anti-Telangana actions by Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy for their decision.

"We were never taken into confidence by the chief minister on any policy issues, particularly those pertaining to the Telangana region. His anti-Telangana stance include the construction of the Pulichintala project at the proposed site which compromises the interest of Telangana despite our repeated pleas to shift the place.

"He has also stepped back on the peace initiative with the Naxalites and also on the implementation of 610 GO, which envisages rectifying the injustices done to the locals in government posts," G Vijayarama Rao, who resigned from the Cabinet as the civil supplies minister, told media soon after submitting the resignations to the Governor.

However, the matter has been seized by the AICC at New Delhi, which deputed Digvijay Singh to defuse the mini-crisis by the time the five TRS ministers met the governor to submit their resignations.

Meanwhile, the chief minister, who met the governor an hour later, sprang a surprise when he told the media, waiting at the Raj Bhavan, that he is yet to give any opinion on the resignations of TRS ministers to Shinde.

This means the resignations are hanging in balance. It is a normal practice that the governor takes decisions on such matters only on the advise of the chief minister.

"The governor sought my opinion on these resignations. I told him that I would delve into the issue from all the necessary angles and get back to him shortly," Reddy said after his brief meeting with Shinde at Raj Bhavan.

When mediapersons reminded him of his week-long tour to Israel and Dubai commencing from today, Reddy shot back saying that there are many ways to reach out to the governor in this hi-tech era.

It is, however, learnt that there is little scope of the chief minister giving any suggestion in favour of resignations to the governor. The matter is expected to be sorted out once KCR meets Gandhi after her return to New Delhi.

Of late, TRS has been under tremendous pressure after the naxal ultimatum to the party to give up their ministerial berths and also to resign from Assembly and Parliament for not achieving Telangana.

Scores of TRS leaders in local bodies in Karimnagar, Medak, Nizamabad districts have been killed by the naxals for not following their diktat.

Though the TRS leaders put up a brave face initially, it became progressively difficult to maintain the stance after the killing of Riaz, who participated in peace talks with the government last year.

A drastic decision such as this had also become necessary for the TRS chief, who has been accused of going back on his promise of achieving Telangana for the sake of ministerial berths in Hyderabad and New Delhi, to prove otherwise to his detractors and also to bring pressure on AICC to get a concrete promise on the issue of Telangana.

Even as KCR stands to gain from this entire episode, the problem of dissidence within TRS has come to the fore with the open defiance of Santosh Reddy on the party decision to quit the post, 'If pulling out of the Cabinet can solve the problem it should start from TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao and he should quit from UPA Cabinet first. I am a loyal party worker but not a slave to carry out the diktats of one person,' Reddy told the media while his other TRS colleagues in the Cabinet rushed to Rajbhavan.