The ministers from Seemandhra region on Wednesday held a marathon meeting with Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy to discuss the future course of action in view of Congress Working Committee’s decision to grant statehood to Telangana region. According to sources, a majority of ministers wanted the mass resignations strategy to be adopted to pressurise the High Command. However, a few senior ministers were in favour of stalling the process of Telangana formation through different means.

With just a few months left for the General Elections, some Seemandhra ministers were of the view that they should delay or drag the process at every stage to ensure that the Telangana Bill does not get introduces in the 15th Lok Sabha, whose term expires on May 31, 2014. Since Congress High Command is completely in favour of Telangana and it has made its opinion public, the ministers felt that it would not reverse its decision immediately fearing political repercussions. However, by delaying the process, the Telangana issue could be dragged to the next government.

The Seemandhra ministers will meet the Chief Minister again at 7 PM on Thursday to take a final decision.

Meanwhile, the elected representatives from the Andhra and Rayalaseema region have conducted a meeting at 12 noon on Thursday at MLAs’ Quarters to discuss future course of action. Based on their decision, the Seemandhra ministers, along with the Chief Minister, will finalise the next strategy.

The decision to give en-masse resignation was reportedly taken in the meeting of Seemandhra MPs held at union minister Pallam Raju’s residence here late Tuesday night. Union Minister Kavuri Sambasiva Rao, JD Seelam, KVP Ramchandra Rao, Lagadapati Rajagopal and K Bapiraju were among the MPs who attended the meeting. According to sources, the MPs, in principle, have decided to put in their papers if the party High Command refuses to defer the decision Telangana.

The MPs will meet again on Tuesday morning at the residence of K Bapiraju to take the final decision. A few MPs were of the opinion that their continuance with the Congress party was meaningless if they could not convince the High Command against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, they are now planning to topple the UPA Government if it decides in favour of Telangana.

After the DMK pulled out of the UPA in March this year, its strength was reduced to 242 from 260. However, with the outside support of SP (22), BSP (21) and RJD (4) the Congress-led coalition had more strength than the magic number of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The Seemandhra MPs are now planning to use the same equations in their favour to halt Telangana. Congress has 19 members from Andhra and Rayalaseema region. If other six members from the region support them and Samajwadi Party, which is against Telangana, extends a helping hand, then the survival of UPA-Government at the Centre would be difficult.

Although it would be premature to predict that the Seemandhra MPs would go to the extent of toppling the Congress-led Government, some MPs gave clear indications that they might go any extent to prevent division of Andhra Pradesh.

According to sources, Kiran Kumar Reddy has sent his resignation to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday evening. He reportedly stated that he does not want to see the division of Andhra Pradesh as the Chief Minister. However, the report of resignation is yet to be confirmed by any official or party spokesperson.

The decision to submit resignation is believed to have been taken during the meeting that the Chief Minister had with his cabinet colleagues from Rayalaseema and Andhra regions at the State Secretariat on Monday evening. Ministers – Anam Ramnarayan Reddy, Ganta Srinivasa Rao, K Parthasarathy, Pithani Satyanarayana and other senior leaders from the Seemandhra region participated in the meeting.

It may be mentioned that the Congress High Command has summoned Kiran Kumar Reddy, Deputy CM Damodar Rajanarasimha, PCC Chief Botsa Satyanarayana to New Delhi ahead of the CWC meeting which will be preceded by the meeting of UPA Coordination Committee. With the Centre looking firm on granting statehood to the Telangana region, the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues from Seemandhra have decided to resign en-masse to pressurise the Centre to defer decision on Telangana.

It is not yet known whether Kiran Kumar Reddy will proceed to New Delhi on Tuesday.