Adding to the woes of beleaguered Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, state endowments minister, Jupally Krishna Rao, today resigned from the Cabinet. He sent his resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
A second time minister, Rao demanded the Centre introduce a Bill on separate statehood for Telangana in the ongoing Parliament session. He also wanted the Centre to come up with a time frame for the completion of the process.
Already, legislators hailing from the Telangana region, including those belonging to the Opposition Telugu Desam Party and the ruling Congress, have started boycotting the Assembly sessions from today in protest against the Centre’s indecision over the separate statehood issue.
Government employees belonging to the Telangana region had stopped work since February 17 in response to a non-cooperation call given by the Telangana Joint Action Committee of Employees leading non-payment of salaries to the government staff and also, for the time, to the chief minister and his Cabinet colleagues.
Meanwhile, just like their counterparts, members from coastal Andhra today stalled the House demanding united Andhra. The Assembly was adjourned for the day, as has been happening since February 17 when Telangana members stalled the Budget session in support of noncooperation protest launched by 300,000 government employees, teachers and workers of public sector undertakings in the region.
Rao, who was not happy with his portfolio, remained vocal on the demand for Telangana and had in the past openly declared that he would resign from the Cabinet if the Centre fails to introduce the Bill. Efforts to persuade the minister to withdraw his resignation by chief minister's men earlier in the day failed.
His resignation comes a day after Kavuru Sambasiva Rao, a high-profile Congress MP from coastal Andhra, openly challenged pro-Telangana leaders to sacrifice their posts instead of threatening coastal Andhra leaders. The move is expected to mount pressure on other ministers from the region as they are the only ones not participating in the ongoing agitations. Members of legislative Assembly and Council belonging to both the Congress and Telugu Desam parties along with TRS and MPs of respective parties have already joined the agitations.
Sources said the chief minister might try to persuade the minister to withdraw his resignation one more time. If the minister insists on forwarding his letter to the Governor, other ministers from the region may come under pressure.
The state government has so far remained a mute spectator as it has not made any headway in convincing any section to restore normality.
'Million March'
Buoyed by the success of a series of agitations, the political Joint Action Committee (JAC) and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) have announced ‘Million March’, claiming that one million people from Telangana districts will march to Hyderabad on March 10. This protest march threatens the conduct of intermediate and CBSE examinations. The government is yet to announce its decision on the TDP’s request for postponement of the exam that is scheduled from March 10 to some other day.
The protesting employees, after two rounds of negotiations with the Cabinet sub-committee, have agreed to discuss the government’s suggestion to end the protest among themselves. However, they appear to be under pressure to continue with the agitation at least up to March 10.
A section of Telangana Congress leaders has so far stayed away from all this fearing the TRS would take all the political mileage. But now, some of them, including a minister in the government, are said to be actively toying with the idea of launching a separate political party in Telangana.
