In the first signs of political trouble in Andhra Pradesh's ruling Congress party, the state minister for women and child welfare Konda Surekha tendered her resignation to the state governor ND Tiwari on Thursday evening.
The resignation came a week after it became clear that the Congress high command was in no mood to accept the demand to make Kadapah Member of Parliament YS Jaganmohan Reddy as the chief minister.
Surekha, who hails from Warangal district and has been among the close followers of former chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, had threatened to resign from the cabinet earlier if Jagan was not made the chief minister in place of his father. "I will not continue as the minister if Rosaiah remains the chief minister on permanent basis", she had said.
Implementing her threat, Surekha met the governor on Thursday evening and handed over the six-page resignation letter without informing Chief Minister K Rosaiah.
The chief minister expressed his ignorance about the development.
"I came to know about it only after somebody informed me over phone", he said, and refused to comment further.
Surekha said the resignation was her personal decision out of the mental agony she was undergoing since the death of "great leader" YSR.
"That YSR is no more is an unbearable tragedy for me and I am not able to accept it", she said. "I can not be part of a cabinet which does not have YSR," she told the media.
In an indirect attack on the party's central leadership for not making Jagan the chief minister, she said through her resignation, she was trying to urge the high command to convene the Congress legislature party meeting at the earliest in accordance with the wishes of the people and elect Jagan as the chief minister.
She also alleged that a group in the Congress party was working actively to obstruct the path of Jagan from becoming the chief minister. She also blamed two Telugu dailies for her resignation saying they were carrying baseless reports that she had changed her loyalties from Jagan to Rosaiah.
Surekha said the senior party leaders should remember that it was YSR who had brought the Congress back to power in the state.
Though more than a dozen ministers had demanded that Jagan be made as the CM and had even said that they would not work under the leadership of anybody else, Surekha is the first minister to put her threat into practice.
Other ministers in the Jagan camp include Agriculture Minister N Raghuveera Reddy, Health Minister Danam Nagendar, Secondary Education Minister Manikya Varaprasad Rao, Civil Supplies Minister J Krishna Rao, Municipal Administration Minister A Ramanarayana Reddy and Rural Development Minister V Vasantha Kumar.
While it is yet not known if other ministers would follow suit, there are speculations that Rosaiah was planning to seek the permission of Sonia Gandhi to drop some of these pro-Jagan ministers, who had earlier resorted to non-cooperation with him.
Surekha's move came almost a week after Jagan met Sonia in Delhi and later declared that he had never demanded the post of chief minister.
Though Jagan said that Sonia had asked him to leave the issue of leadership to her, many Congress leaders believe that the Congress high command has made up its mind not to give the post to Jagan.
Surekha's decision to resign came as a surprise to many in the government, as she had attended the cabinet meeting earlier in the day.
In her resignation letter, she also tried to clarify that she had nothing personal against Rosaiah or his leadership but it was her wish to see Jagan as the chief minister.
"I am trying to work in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the people", she said.
