Congress high command and the government had no immediate steps to lessen the tension despite a two-hour meeting of the Congress Core Group last night and a series of consultations today.
The Congress and the government headed by it appear to have been caught in a cleft with Telangana MPs today stepping up pressure and warning of "serious repercussions" if the decision on separate statehood is "diluted".
Congress MPs from Telangana, lying low for sometime, suddenly stepped up their campaign and are understood to have dashed off a letter to prime minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi today threatening the leadership that they
were "ready to resign and join the movement for a separate Telangana state", one of them said on condition of anonymity.
The party high command and the government apparently had no immediate steps to lessen the tension despite a two-hour meeting of the Congress Core Group late last night and a series of consultations today.
MPs from Rayalaseema and Coastal Andra Pradesh had meetings with home minister P Chidambaram, law minister M Veerappa Moily and political secretary to Congress president Ahmed Patel to find a way out of the present imbroglio.
They had yesterday claimed that the government would come out with a statement in a day or two to put "everything in order" in Andhra Pradesh.
However, there was no assurance from the leadership so far on their demand for a statement that would help pacify the sentiments of the people in the areas of Andhra Pradesh other than Telangana.
The MPs who met these leaders included YS Jaganmohan Reddy, son of late chief minister YS Rajashekhara Reddy, KS Rao and KVP Ramachandra Rao. Union ministers D Purandraswari and Panabaka Lakshmi were also present.
The refrain of these MPs was that they cannot go back to their constituencies unless the Centre gave a statement mollifying the people in their areas as the situation was "worsening day-by-day". In the letter, the Congress MPs from Telangana are understood to have alleged that the protests in Andhra and Rayalaseema regions were not "spontaneous" but were "orchestrated by land mafias and other vested interests."
"Any dilution of stand on the Telangana issue will have serious repercussions in the region. The demand for a separate Telangana state is 50 years old and it is a people's movement," the MPs are believed to have said.
The MP said "Congress workers and leaders from the Telangana region are very disciplined and never protested against the party. We will abide by the party decision."
"If needed, we are also ready to quit our posts and join the movement for the creation of Telangana," he said, quoting from the letter.
When asked in Parliament by newsmen, the prime minister remained non-committal on a statement, saying "right now nothing can be said".
Meanwhile, the Telangana MPs claimed that they were assured by senior party leaders that there will be no going back on the Telangana issue. They also said that they have conveyed their protest over the way their counterparts from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema were behaving.
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