Efforts by local Congress leaders and the high command seemed to have not worked on party legislators from Telangana who remained steadfast in their resolve to resign from their posts en masse on July 4 in support of a separate state.
Efforts by local Congress leaders and the high command seemed to have not worked on party legislators from Telangana who remained steadfast in their resolve to resign from their posts en masse on July 4 in support of a separate state.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel is said to have called MPs Keshava Rao and Ponnam Prabhakar over phone and tried to prevail upon them to give up their tough stance as the statehood issue was under consideration.
"Since the high command is busy holding consultations with various political parties for the preparation of the Lokpal Bill, please wait for some time," Patel reportedly requested the MPs and asked them to reconsider their decision to resign.
Even state chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Botsa Satyanarayana held talks with ministers, MPs and MLAs from Telangana separately for several hours today and tried to placate them but to no avail.
"There is no change in our decision to resign from our posts. We have sought an appointment with Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar on Monday and we all shall submit our resignations while the state ministers and MLAs will resign here," MPs Keshava Rao, Ponnam and Gutta Sukhender Reddy asserted.
Interestingly, not all ministers and MLAs from Telangana were ready to resign from their posts.
At least half-a-dozen ministers, including deputy chief minister Damodar Rajanarasimha, were said to be disinclined to put in their papers while about 20 MLAs too were averse to the idea, Congress sources said.
"Resignations are the not the solution to Telangana problem. We have to fight with the high command and secure statehood," marketing minister M Mukesh Goud said.
The state Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana wanted the Telangana leaders to met the high command once again and seek a solution to the vexatious statehood issue "in the interest of the state".
"The Congress high command will take a decision that is acceptable to eight crore people of Andhra Pradesh," he said.
He, however, endorsed AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad's view that the Telangana issue would take longer time to be resolved.
"I understand the compelling situation they (Telangana leaders) are in. But this is a sensitive issue and resignations may not solve the problem. I asked them to meet the high command leaders once again and seek a solution that will do good to the state," Botsa told reporters.
He directed party leaders from Andhra-Rayalaseema regions not to make any adverse remarks on the Telangana leaders' resignation threat.
On a day of hectic activity in the Congress camp, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and Botsa stepped in to avert a possible crisis in the wake of the threat by legislators from Telangana to quit their posts en masse.
Following a directive from the Congress high command to defuse the situation, Reddy swung into action and held talks with ministers K Jana Reddy and Sunita Laxma Reddy among others. The state PCC chief too spoke to ministers P Sudarshan Reddy, Basavaraj Saraiah and some MLAs from Telangana on the resignations issue.
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