Thirty two members of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly of the Telugu Desam Party on Wednesday submitted their resignations to the deputy speaker, protesting the delay in the formation of Telangana state.
The MLAs, led by Telangana TDP forum convenor E Dayakar Rao, reached the deputy speaker's office at around 5.30 pm and submitted their resignations. Earlier, they had discussed their strategy and plan of action at the party office in the assembly premises.
This is the second time the TDP MLAs from Telangana region have submitted their resignations.
Earlier, they had submitted their resignations along with all the 100 MLAs of the region belonging to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist party of India. However, Speaker N Manohar had rejected all the resignations, saying they were submitted on emotional grounds.
The move to submit fresh resignations came at a time when the agitation for a separate state has reached its peak in the state.
Though the TDP leaders from Telangana tried to actively participate in the agitation by sitting on a day-long fast on Saturday, they came under attack from pro-Telangana activists, who demanded that they should first resign from their positions.
Meanwhile, TDP MLA Gampa Govardhan of Kamareddy in Nizamabad district has decided to resign from the party over the Telangana issue.
So far, six TDP MLAs from the region have resigned from the party as they were disappointed with party president N Chandrababu Naidu's vague stand on Telangana.
Besides them, 11 TRS MLAs and four rebel TDP MLAs have already submitted their resignations for the second time in support of Telangana.
The TDP's second round of resignations will put more pressure on Congress MLAs from Telangana region to do the same. In fact, TDP's Telangana MLAs had earlier said that they will resign only if the Congress MLAs follow suit, but later they changed their strategy.
