Hyderabad, January 01: Under pressure from Congress high command, 11 of the 13 Telangana ministers decided to write another letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi expressing their intention to withdraw the earlier decision to quit the Rosaiah ministry.
The 13 ministers had faxed a letter to Sonia Gandhi on December 25 expressing their desire to resign following Centre’s flip-flop on the Telangana statehood issue.
Talking to the media, the ministers said state party president D Srinivas had advised them to write another letter to Sonia Gandhi, asserting their faith in her leadership and expressing their wish to take back their earlier resignation letter in view of Centre’s decision to start consultations with eight political parties from January 5.
Following this, they met chief minister K Rosaiah and conveyed their decision. According to civil supplies minister J Krishna Rao, this was a “strategic move as we are taking one step backward to facilitate the Centre to move forward in the direction of carving a separate state.”
He said in case during the process of consultations, if they got a feeling that the issue was getting diluted, they would “jump back” into the agitation mode. “We’ll go to any extent… the next assembly elections will be held in separate Telangana,” he said.
However, two of the 13 ministers — K Venkat Reddy (information technology) and D Sridhar Babu (higher education) — refused to toe the line of their colleagues. Venkat Reddy said he was not willing to go back on the decision to quit the cabinet. “It would amount to diluting the cause,” they said. Meanwhile, the climb-down by 11 ministers came in for sharp criticism from chairman of Joint Action Committee Prof Kodandaram.
-Agencies