By IANS,
Hyderabad : Two ministers from the Telangana region Tuesday withdrew their resignations but legislators of Andhra Pradesh’s ruling Congress party have refused to do so saying they would abide by the all-party Joint Action Committee’s (JAC) decision.
Minister for Information Technology K. Venkat Reddy and Minister for Higher Education D. Sridhar Babu met state Congress chief D. Srinivas to convey their decision to withdraw the resignations.
They said they were satisfied with the steps being taken by the central government to carve out Telangana state and hence decided to withdraw the resignations. They claimed that the centre stood by the Dec 9 statement to initiate the process for formation of Telangana state.
Their move came a day after the state Congress chief asked all ministers and legislators to take back their resignations.
While 11 ministers from the region had withdrawn their resignations Dec 31, the two ministers had said they would do so only after the centre initiates the process for Telangana state.
Congress party legislators from Telangana held a meeting and decided to abide by the decision of the JAC, which is holding a crucial meeting later in the day to decide its future course of action in view of the continuing silence by the centre over the Telangana issue.
Congress legislator Damodar Reddy told reporters that they would be ahead of other parties in fighting for Telangana state. “We will abide by the decision of JAC,” he said.
Cutting across party lines, 77 out of 119 legislators from the region had submitted their resignations to the assembly speaker after the centre made a second statement on Dec 23 underlining the need for consultations on the issue of granting statehood to Telangana. The legislators felt the centre was going back on its commitment made Dec 9.
The all-party meeting called by union Home Minister P. Chidambaram Jan 5 failed to break the impasse.
The JAC is likely to intensify the Telangana agitation by asking the remaining legislators to submit their resignations and urging the speaker to accept them.