Five YSR Congress MPs resign from Lok Sabha over Andhra special status

YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy had in February announced that his party MPs would resign from Parliament if special status is not granted to Andhra Pradesh.

india Updated: Apr 06, 2018 13:13 IST

YSR Congress MPs V Vara Prasada Rao, YV Subba Reddy, PV Midhum Reddy, YS Avinash Reddy and Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy meet with Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday morning.(ANI/Twitter)

Five MPs of the YSR Congress Party on Friday resigned from the Lok Sabha to protest the “failure” of the NDA government to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

V Vara Prasada Rao, YV Subba Reddy, PV Midhum Reddy, YS Avinash Reddy and Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy met Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to submit their letters after the lower house was adjourned sine dine. Friday was the last day of the budget session.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, the MPs said they were outraged as their notices for a no-confidence motion against the NDA government were not taken up for discussion in the House due to frequent disruptions.

The YSR Congress MPs had given notices for a no-confidence motion against the government for its failure to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

Party MP Varaprasad Rao Velagapalli had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu of “disrespecting democracy”, saying both the leaders “failed” to keep their promises to the people of Andhra Pradesh.

“YSRCP has given notices for a no-confidence motion 12 times and not even once it was taken up for discussion,” Velagapalli said a day earlier.

YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy had announced in February that the party’s five MPs would resign if its demand for Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh was not fulfilled by the Centre.

The YSRCP and the TDP, which walked out of the BJP-led NDA, had given notices for no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha.

Following this, TDP supremo and Andhra CM Naidu had met parliamentary party leaders of various parties in an attempt to garner support for the no-confidence motion.

“Naidu began fighting for special category status out of sheer pressure from the people as our leader has been ramping up pressure on him on the issue. He had no option but to quit the NDA,” another YSRCP MP Mekapati Raja Mohan Reddy said.

On Naidu’s claims of nexus between the YSRCP and the BJP, he said, “Naidu is trying to club our party with the BJP. This is unfair. The TDP was in alliance with the BJP for four years and now they are blaming us.”