Carrying out their threat, 24 MLAs of the Congress and two of the Telugu Desam resigned their assembly seats on Monday in protest against the CBI raids against YSR Congress Party chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy.
Their other grouse is that the agency named Jaganmohan’s father, the late YS Rajasekhar Reddy (YSR), who was chief minister from 2004 to 2009, as a co-conspirator in the disproportionate assets case.
However, this move will not affect the majority the Congress has in the assembly.
The Congress MLAs met at Jaganmohan’s party office in Banjara Hills and then proceeded in a bus to the assembly to submit their resignations. On the way they garlanded the statues of YSR and Dalit leader BR Ambedkar, disrupting traffic for more than an hour.
They handed over their resignations to legislature secretary S Raja Sadaram because speaker Nadendla Manohar was not present.
Speaking to reporters, former minister P Subash Chandra Bose said they resigned in protest against attempts to “malign” the image of YSR.
“The Congress leaders launched a vilification campaign after his untimely death and a conspiracy was hatched to erase his memories from public life. The ruling party explored legal options and used the CBI to project YSR as the main accused. We cannot continue any longer in the face of these attempts to denigrate the late leader in spite of his contributions to the party and people,” Bose said.
{{/usCountry}}“The Congress leaders launched a vilification campaign after his untimely death and a conspiracy was hatched to erase his memories from public life. The ruling party explored legal options and used the CBI to project YSR as the main accused. We cannot continue any longer in the face of these attempts to denigrate the late leader in spite of his contributions to the party and people,” Bose said.
{{/usCountry}}Immediately after submitting their resignation, the members took a special flight to Tirupati.
Meanwhile, at Congress headquarters, the party welcomed Chiranjeevi, who merged his 18-MLA Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) formally with the Congress. The merger of the PRP takes the Congress strength in the 294-member Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly to 173 (including those who resigned).