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Hyderbad: Defiant Congress leaders from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions ignored the party high command's directive to withdraw their resignations and upped their ante tonight by adopting three resolutions one of which demanded reconsideration of Telangana decision and asking Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy to quit.
About 90 Congress ministers, MLCs and MLAs had an over five-and-a-half hour meeting with the chief minister and PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana this evening. Among other two resolutions adopted is putting on hold the bifurcation process until a high-level committee headed by union minister A K Antony submitted its report on the modalities related to the division.
In the third resolution, the Congress leaders took strong objection to the manner in which the party's Central Working Committee took the decision to divide the state without any road map. "All legislators, including the Chief Minister and the PCC president, were signatories to the resolutions," senior MLA Anam Vivekananda Reddy told reporters at the end of the meeting. Initially, a one-line resolution was adopted at the meeting demanding that the state be kept united.
After a few legislators left mid way, ministers and seniors MLAs like J C Diwakar Reddy, Gade Venkat Reddy and others continued their deliberations with the CM and the PCC chief. Heat was generated at the meeting with senior legislators like Gade Venkata Reddy demanding that the chief minister and the PCC president step down from their posts.
The legislators, in fact, wanted Botsa to join the movement, launched by people of Andhra-Rayalaseema, for a unified state. The AICC observers also joined the meeting and told the legislators to "fall in line" as the party high command has already constituted a committee headed by A K Antony to look into the demands of people of Andhra-Rayalaseema and address their concerns, informed sources said.
