Hyderabad: In a virtual showdown with the Congress leadership as well as the Union Cabinet, Union ministers and Members of Parliament belonging to the Seemandhra region threatened to resign their posts and memberships on Thursday if the Centre goes ahead with the Cabinet Note on bifurcation without consulting the A.K. Antony panel’s report that is yet to be submitted.

The resignation threat came immediately after Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Thursday, said, “I’m in receipt of the Cabinet Note on Telangana. It will be considered by the Cabinet at an appropriate time.”

Later in the evening, Shinde said, “A draft note has come. I have no time to go through it. I will read it tomorrow (Friday) and take appropriate action, but there is no chance of placing this note in tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting.”

According to sources, the draft Cabinet Note suggests that Hyderabad City should remain with Telangana permanently, but it should also act as a temporary capital city for Seemandhra state for 10 years. “I’m yet to see the contents of the draft note. I can’t say what would be the status of Hyderabad,” Shinde said.

However, there’s still uncertainty about whether the Union Cabinet meeting at 9.45 am on Friday will consider the Telangana note or not. Sources said that though the note is not part of the regular agenda, it could be circulated as a “table item” in the Cabinet meeting itself depending on the urgency of the matter.

Seemandhra MPs ready to resign

Hyderabad: The Seemandhra Congress MPs contacted the Lok Sabha Speaker’s office to seek audience with Meira Kumar to press for acceptance of their resignations submitted earlier. The Lok Sabha Secretariat informedUndavalli Arun Kumar that Meira Kumar has agreed to meet all the eight MPs at 11.30 am on September 24.

Lagadapati Rajagopa said, “If the Centre goes ahead with the Cabinet Note or moves even an inch in that direction, we will approach the Speaker and get our resignations accepted.”
We cannot go back now.”

MPs Sai Pratap and Anantha Venkatarami Reddy pointed out that if the Cabinet Note is ready, as Shinde says, then what was the purpose of constituting the A.K. Antony Committee? Without waiting for its report and recommendations, how can the matter go forward?

The Seemandhra MPs who have submitted their resignations to the Speaker’s office are: Undavalli Arun Kumar (Rajahmundry), G.V. Harsha Kumar (Amalapuram), Lagadapati Rajagopal (Vijayawada), A. Sai Pratap (Rajampet), A. Anantha Venkatarami Reddy (Anantapur), Magunta Srinivasula Reddy (Ongole), S.P.Y. Reddy (Nandyal) and  Rayapati Sambasiva Rao (Guntur).

In a related development, five out of nine Union ministers belonging to the Seemandhra region also decided to quit their posts. They are K.S. Rao, M.M. Pallam Raju, Daggubati Purandeswari, Killi Kriparani and Kotla Surya Prakash Reddy.

Sources said all the five ministers and the Seemandhra MPs reportedly submitted a letter to this effect to AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh on Thursday night.

Coming out after meeting Digvijay Singh, Kriparani said that Digvijay Singh, in the meeting, stated that Antony right now is indisposed and there will be further movement on the issue once he is back adding that till then it would be inappropriate to say anything on the subject.

A section of the leaders also hoped that their since the changes of the Cabinet taking up the Telangana nore is remote, they will not have to quit immediately.

There is no word from other ministers such as Kishore Chandra Deo, K. Chiranjeevi, Panabaka Laxmi and J.D. Seelam as yet.

Leaders of T, anti-T find no headway

Hyderabad: Congress leaders from Telangana and Seemandhra regions met on Thursday at the CLP office to try and arrive at a consensus regarding the issues facing the two regions in the backdrop of the state’s bifurcation.

However, nothing constructive came of the meeting. The meeting was attended by panchayat raj minister K. Jana Reddy, civil supplies minister D. Sridhar Babu, social welfare minister B. Saraiah, MLC P. Sudhakar Reddy, former minister T. Jeevan Reddy from Telangana and law minister Erasu Pratap Reddy, infrastructure minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao, government whip R. Padma Raju, former deputy chairman of the legislature council and MLC Mohammad Jani from Seemandhra.

However, with leaders from both regions not willing to budge from their arguments, the meeting ended without any results. The Telangana leaders asked their Seemandhra counterparts to support the CWC’s decision to bifurcate the state while Seemandhra leaders asked the former to accept a united Andhra Pradesh.