Telangana Cong MLAs meet Azad on AP speaker's move

Congress lawmakers from Telangana region on Monday protested before party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad against the Andhra Pradesh assembly speaker's move to reject resignations of MLAs over the statehood demand.

The ministers, MPs and MLAs, who are in New Delhi for consultations on the issue, met Azad for the third time in a week and made it clear there was no going back on the demand for a separate state of Telangana.

As Azad has sought further clarifications on various issues, the delegation members are planning to give a powerpoint presentation to the Union health minister when they meet him next on Wednesday.

"We registered our protest before Azad against the move by Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar rejecting the resignation of over 100 MLAs from the region," Congress leader K Keshav Rao told mediapersons after the meeting.

Manohar had on Saturday rejected the resignations of all Telangana MLAs on the ground that they were tendered in an "emotionally charged atmosphere".

The lawmakers told the Congress general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh that "nothing short of a Telangana state" is acceptable to them.

Sources said Azad asked a copy of a speech made by late Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in the state assembly in February, 2009 on the Telangana issue.

While constituting a committee to go into the Telangana issue, Reddy had on February 12, 2009 declared that the state government has no objection in principle to the formation of a separate Telengana state.