With frantic efforts by the Congress leadership coming to nought, all eyes are now on the number of Ministers, MP and legislators from Telangana who will turn up to submit their resignations to the respective presiding officers on Monday.
With some Ministers openly opposing the decision to resign and few other legislators unwilling to fall in line, there is intense speculation on the number of elected representatives ready to honour the decision taken by Telangana MPs and MLAs at the July 1 meeting.
Two Ministers – Danam Nagender and M. Mukesh Goud – have declared that they would not resign.
Ten other MLAs from Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts are believed to be supporting them. Deputy Chief Minister C. Damodar Raj Narasimha too is said to have rejected the plea to resign while doubts are being raised whether Sarvey Satyanarayana (Malkajgiri), Anjan Kumar Yadav (Secunderabad) and Suresh Shetkar (Zaheerabad) will join their colleagues.
However, a majority of the Congress leaders from the region have rejected the party leadership's appeal against going ahead with their resignations.
It is expected that 35 MLAs, including 12 Ministers and 12 MLCs, would meet the Legislature Secretary Raja Sadaram in the absence of Speaker Nadendla Manohar and Deputy Speaker Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and hand over their letters on Monday.
Apparently, efforts of top Congress leaders such as Pranab Mukherjee, Ahmed Patel, Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and APCC president Botcha Satyanarayana to persuade them have failed.
The Chief Minister and PCC president held a series of meetings with some Ministers and followed it up with telephone calls to Rajya Sabha member K. Keshava Rao and Panchayat Raj Minister K. Jana Reddy, but to no avail.
Mr. Jana Reddy and MP Ponnam Prabhakar told reporters firmly that they would resign between 11 a.m. and 12 noon. “We are submitting the resignations letters for the Telangana cause. We will fight for statehood by remaining in the party only,” Mr. Reddy asserted.
It is understood that during their interaction with the Chief Minister, some Ministers remarked that it was unfair on the part of the high command to ask them not to resign. “The central leadership is not coming up with any solution but wants us not to resign. We are under pressure from our people,” a senior Minister said.
Eight MPs later in the day left for New Delhi to submit their resignations. They include Ponnam Prabhakar (Karimnagar), G. Vivekananda (Peddapalli), S. Rajaiah (Warangal), Balram Naik (Mahabubabad), Manda Jagannath (Nagarkurnool), Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy (Bhongir) and Gutha Sukhender Reddy (Nalgonda) besides Mr. Keshava Rao.
