New Delhi/Hyderabad, July 4 (ANI): The Congress leadership in Delhi has reportedly asked party lawmakers of the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh to come to New Delhi for a meeting on Monday evening to discuss and resolve the issue of moving ahead with their en masse resignation threat over a demand for the formation of a separate state of Telangana out of the existing state of Andhra Pradesh.
"It is a sensitive issue. We have to consider the sentiments of all eight crore people of Andhra Pradesh. The Congress leadership will try to satisfy everyone. The Telangana leaders must not act in a hurry," said Botsa Satyanarayana, the president of the Andhra Pradesh unit of the Congress party.
However, Keshav Rao, the Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Telangana, said that all party lawmakers would be submitting their resignations to the Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh State Assembly by 11 a.m.
"Botsa is doing his job, we are doing ours... for the people of Telangana," said Rao.
The en masse resignation, however, will not threaten the Kiran Kumar Reddy-led Congress government in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh has 42 lok sabha seats. There are eight Congress Lok Sabha Members of Parliament, one Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (Keshav Rao), 24 Members of the Legislative Assembly, 10 state ministers and 10 Members of the Legislative Council. They have all threatened to resign.
Pro-Telangana groups had set a June-end deadline and had insisted that only a resignation spree can put political pressure on the UPA Government at the Centre to take steps for the formation of a separate Telangana state.
On December 9, 2009, the Centre had announced that the process for the formation of a separate Telangana state would be initiated. This announcement was made after 11 days of fasting by Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K Chandrasekhar Rao and massive violent protests in the Telangana region. However, after leaders from the non-Telangana areas of Andhra Pradesh objected, political parties in the state did a u-turn.
The Centre set up the Srikrishna Commission which travelled to different parts of Andhra Pradesh to gauge what people and their representatives really wanted. The Commission presented six options to the Centre. Since then, the government in Delhi has said only that it is assessing these options.
Congress leaders from Telangana had recently met the Prime Minister and senior leader Pranabh Mukherjee in Delhi. At that time, they said they'd be forced to take serious action if no new push for a Telangana state was made by the end of June.
Congress Rajya Sabha member K Keshav Rao claimed that party leaders from non-Telangana regions were trying to scuttle the formation of Telangana by meeting top Congress leaders in the first week of July.
The Congress has around 10 ministers in the state government, 50 MLAs and 11 MPs from Telangana. (ANI)
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