Union Labour Minister K Chandrasekara Rao and his party colleague A Narendra are understood to have decided to quit the ministry.
NEW DELHI: Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) Chief and Union Labour Minister K Chandrasekara Rao and his party colleague in the UPA government A Narendra are understood to have decided to quit the ministry.
The TRS, which has five members in the Lok Sabha, is also believed to be firm on quitting the coalition.
The letters of resignation of the two ministers are being sent across to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, TRS sources said here after last minute efforts to sort out the issue arising out of his demand for separate Telengana state within the coalition failed.
TRS, which fought the 2004 Parliament and Assembly elections pressing the demand for a separate Telengana state, is upset that there has been no no progress on the issue.
Even if TRS withdraws support, five members of the party may not affect the stability of the Congress-led coalition which at the moment enjoys the support of about 330 members in the 545-member Lok Sabha . But it is seen as the first major political blow to the anti-BJP grouping.
The TRS has been having an uneasy relationship with the Congress, especially in Andhra Pradesh, where it has already pulled out of the coalition government and withdrew its support to the Rajasekhara Reddy government.
Rao met Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads a sub-committee of the coalition on the demand for separate Telengana, and during the interaction the Left parties made clear their strong opposition to the TRS demand.
The TRS has also been unhappy that the UPA coalition had not taken any concrete steps in implementation of his demand and had last week set a deadline of Wednesday night for quitting the government.
Resignation of TRS ministers "unfortunate": Govt
The govt said the resignation of two union ministers belonging to Telangana Rashtriya Samithi, a constituent of UPA, was "very disappointing and unfortunate".
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi expressed the hope that Labour Minister and TRS leader K Chandrashekhar Rao and his ministerial colleague A Narendra would not associate with "communal" parties.
Dasmunsi said that Rao and Narendra had assured all UPA leaders earlier in the day that they would work within government to help work out a consensus on the issue of a separate Telangana state.
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