4 Seemandhra mantris talk to PM, quit posts

Hyderabad: Even before the recently appointed Group of Ministers (GoM) can hold their first meeting on the state’s bifurcation issue, four Seemandhra Union ministers met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Monday evening and submitted their resignations in person. HRD minister M.M. Pallam Raju, tourism minister K. Chiranjeevi, minister of state for commerce D. Purandeswari and minister of state for Railways Kotla Surya Prakash Reddy went to 7, Race Course Road, met the Prime Minister and handed him their letters of resignation. After coming out of the Prime Minister’s residence, Purandeswari said that all four ministers had requested the PM to accept the letters immediately. “We also conveyed to him that we will not attend to our office work from tomorrow.” The reason for quitting, she said, was that, “We are for keeping the state united. That was not accepted by the party. Then we asked that the A.K. Antony Committee visit the state to talk to people and decide. Even that did not happen. Our people want us to resign the posts, so we did.” She said the ministers also “explained the ground level situation in the state and the protests against the state’s bifurcation. The Prime Minister told us he will take a decision on our resignations.” Purandeswari said that their quitting is not against the Congress high command and the party president Sonia Gandhi who gave them the opportunity to serve the people all these years. “We took the decision to instil confidence in our people.”