Union Minister of State for Social Justice P. Balram Naik has made light of the resignation of MPs -- G, Vivekanand and Manda Jagannatham -- claiming their resignation was unlikely to impact the party.
The Union Minister, who called on Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy currently in New Delhi, on Friday, wanted the resigned MPs to clarify whether they had quit the party to join the struggle for separate Telangana State or with an eye on winning the next elections from their respective constituencies. He asserted that Congress alone was capable of carving out separate Telangana State and the leadership was seriously examining the demand.
He said the MPs’ decision to quit was their personal decision. He asserted that he would continue in the Congress and mount pressure on the leadership to take a favourable decision on the separate statehood issue.
Meanwhile, Mr. Vivek is understood to have clarified to party’s State leadership that he was prepared to reconsider his decision if the party high command gave a concrete assurance on formation of separate Telangana.
Another MP S. Rajaiah, who was tipped to join the Telangana Rashtra Samiti along with Mr. Vivek and Dr. Jagannatham, however, changed his mind when he told reporters in Warangal that he had no plans to quit the Congress.
