I am ready to quit as MP, says Jaganmohan

Striking a defiant note, Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy on Monday announced that he would go ahead with his tour of Telangana region and said he was ready to quit from the Lok Sabha if anyone proved that he had even made a single political statement during his tour of the region.

Jaganmohan, who arrived in the capital last night to meet the Congress high command, said no one can stop him from going ahead with the yatra to console the families of those who either died or allegedly committed suicide after hearing the news of the death of his father Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.

"It (the yatra) cannot be stopped. I have sought appointments with the party high command to apprise them of what has happened. I will explain them that I have done nothing wrong," the 37-year-old Congress MP told reporters.

Jaganmohan said, as a "dutiful" son of his late father, it was his "moral responsibility" to go, meet and console the families of those who had laid their lives for his father.

"It is my duty and moral responsibility. I went to Khammam district some time back and I met 54 families there. Never ever had I made a single political statement. You can recall the tapes and if you can prove that even in one meeting in Khammam district in Telangana that I have politicised (the yatra) I am ready to go to any extent even I am ready to resign," he said in a defiant note.

"I am committed (to carry on with my yatra) to that level," he said.

Jaganmohan, the son of late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, alleged that his opponents have sent an adverse report to the high command.

"I will meet senior party leaders and will tell them that my yatra is apolitical," he said. Jaganmohan is in the eye of a storm ever since he defied the party high command's directive and went ahead with his tour of the sensitive Telangana region on Friday. He was forced to abandon the yatra after violence erupted in Mahaboobabad town in Warangal district, the hotbed of the separate state agitation.

A day earlier, Congress in-charge of Andhra Pradesh Veerappa Moily had asked him not to go ahead with the yatra given the situation in the region, but a defiant Jaganmohan went ahead and was taken into preventive custody.

Pro-Telangana groups opposed Jaganmohans visit as he is opposed to bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Jaganmohan had earlier embarrassed the Congress High Command in December when he held placards along with TDP members in Parliament opposing the creation of a separate Telangana state.