Hyderabad: Keeping its word, five YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) MPs on Friday submitted their resignations to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha in protest against Andhra Pradesh not being accorded special category status (SCS). The YSRCP had also earlier announced that its next step will be to conduct protests in the coming days in New Delhi till its demand is met.
The five lawmakers who resigned on Saturday are V. Vara Prasada Rao, Y. V. Subba Reddy, P. V. Midhun Reddy, Y. S. Avinash Reddy and Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy.
On 31 March, YSRCP chief Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had announced that his party MPs will resign on the last day or Parliament’s ongoing session and would sit on an indefinite hunger strike at Andhra Bhavan in the national capital to mount pressure on the centre to grant Andhra Pradesh SCS.
Reddy had also stated that his party cadre will conduct relay hunger strikes in every village, mandal and assembly constituency levels across state demanding the same. The YSRCP had earlier asked the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs to resign as well in interest on the state. However, a senior TDP leader, who did not want to be identified, said that his party has decided not to do so.
“From here on out, it will solely be a matter of political alliances and one upmanship. The SCS demand is the only thing all parties will be concentrating on. Pressing for it since 2014 when the state bifurcated is paying-off for us too,” said a senior Congress leader from Andhra Pradesh, who also did not want to be quoted.
The issue of Andhra not being accorded being granted SCS has picked up steam even since the Union Budget 2018 was announced, when the TDP began protesting against the centre for not giving Andhra its due in funds. It has also been demanding that all of the promises made to the state before its bifurcation from Telangana in 2014 should also be fulfilled.
The YSRCP on the other hand has stuck to the SCS demand, and never budged from it. On Saturday, TDP supremo and AP chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had held a bicycle rally from Venkatapalem village to the state secretariat at Amaravati demanding special category status for Andhra Pradesh.
With SCS becoming the focal point in the state, it has become the sole agenda for all political parties in the upcoming state and Lok Sabha elections to be held in 2019.