Telangana row: Mass resignations in AP likely

The present dimensions of Andhra Pradesh politics is likely to change with over 1000 people's representatives deciding to submit their mass resignations on Tuesday after a crucial meeting of the Telangana Joint Action Committee in Hyderabad at 2 pm.

A member of the Joint Action Committee told rediff.com that the agenda of the meeting for Tuesday has been fixed.

"We feel that the Union government is trying to ensure that the movement goes into the ice box and there is no way that we will let that happen. In a bid to step up pressure, all representatives belonging to the Telangana region will submit their resignations tomorrow itself," the member said.

We are unhappy with the assurances of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and there is no way in which we want to wait any longer. We have built this movement with such difficulty and at the last moment, we don't want the Union government sending it to the cold storage. Increasingly we get the feeling that they are buying time to kill the movement," he added.

Chairperson of the Telangana JAC Prof Kodand Ram says, Abhi hum Dilli nahin jayenge, delhi ko yahan aana hoga. (Now we won't go to New Delhi, New Delhi will have to come here)

The repercussions of such a mass resignation movement will be disastrous for Andhra Pradesh. There are over a 1000 representatives belonging to the Telangana movement and each one appears to be united in its stand. The JAC will not have any trouble in convincing all these members to tender their resignations.

The Telangana region in all has 119 Members of Legislative Assembly, of which 54 belong to the Congress. If these leaders resign, the strength of the party on the floor of the house will drop, which means the government will roll.

Apart from this, there are 17 Lok Sabha members and 10 Rajya Sabha members from the Telangana region. In the mandal level, there are around 480 representatives from this region apart from 10 chairmen of the Zilla Parishads.

In the category of Members of Legislative Council, there are 12 of them from the local bodies, 3 graduates and 3 teacher candidate MLCs.

Apart from this, the Andhra government has something more to worry about in case mass resignations are undertaken. The budget session is slated for February and if these representatives resign, then it will be next to impossible to go ahead with the budget session.

The JAC meeting is not expected to settle for anything less. They say, from the mandal to the Parliament level, there will be resignations galore. A bill has to be tabled in Parliament, and the Congress alone can get it passed, since it has a majority.