By IANS,
Hyderabad : On the eve of parliament’s monsoon session, the Congress party MPs from Telangana Sunday rejected the party leadership’s appeal to withdraw their resignations.
The MPs made it clear that there is no question of their withdrawing the resignations without a positive announcement on the demand for a separate Telangana state.
With the monsoon session beginning Monday, the central leadership of the Congress tried to persuade its MPs to take back their resignations.
Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is in charge of the party’s affairs in Andhra Pradesh, twice spoke to senior leader and Rajya Sabha member K. Keshava Rao during the day to request that the party MPs withdraw their resignations.
“We will not be able to accept his request,” Keshava Rao told reporters after a meeting of MPs Sunday evening.
He said that if their resignations are kept pending, they will not attend parliament and if the resignations are rejected by the presiding officers, they would stall the proceedings.
Ten Lok Sabha members of the Congress and Keshava Rao submitted their resignations early this month to mount pressure on the central leadership to make a categorical statement on carving out a separate Telangana state.
Two MPs each of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) have also submitted their resignations.
Recalling that the Congress party made several statements in favour of a separate state, Keshava Rao said it was not proper to delay the process in the name of consultations.
Earlier, Keshava Rao urged the Congress leadership to complete the consultations on the issue by Sep 17.
As many as 101 members of Andhra Pradesh assembly from Telangana region belonging to the Congress, the TDP, the TRS and the Communist Party of India (CPI) also submitted their resignations July 4.
The assembly speaker rejected all the resignations July 23 on the ground that they were tendered in an emotionally charged atmosphere.