Hydrabad : Andhra Pradesh State Legislative Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar has rejected all MLA resignations inabsentia. Mr. Manohar has been on travelling internationally for the last few days, and has left to London during the wee hours of Saturday. His decision to reject all resignations in a single stroke of pen was announced by the Assembly Secretary Mr. Raja Sadaram, as the speaker himself pronounced his decision only minutes before boarding the plane to London for a conference of Speakers of the CommonWealth countries.
The announcement reads that the Speaker believes, after sufficient investigation into the issue, that the resignations were emotionally motivated. The Speaker holds the authority to make a decision based on one’s own discretion in such situations. It may be remembered that the Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy had rejected, as the then-Speaker of the A.P. Legislative Assembly, similar mass-resignations by MLAs of non-Telangana regions following the infamous “December 9 announcement” by the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram.
Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), which is the forefront with regard to resignations for the cause of Telangana State, announced that their MLAs will resign again. MLAs belonging to the major political parties Indian National Congress and Telugu Desam Party plan to meet exclusively in order to discuss their further course of action. It is interesting to note that the Speaker’s decision comes right before the Telangana representatives in the Congress party should meet with Gulam Nabi Azad for a discussion pertaining to the statehood for Telangana. MLAs affiliated to BJP, PRP, and CPI have also resigned and their course of action is not known yet; the BJP has already expressed its disapproval of the Speaker’s decision.
Since Telangana agitation has opened the curtains for mass resignations multiple times in all regions of the State of Andhra Pradesh, such a step from the Speaker of the State’s Legislative Assembly (for a second time) will set forth a standard for any such future occurences, political analysts believe. In the wake of this situation in the State of Andhra Pradesh, it seems very likely that the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mrs. Mira Kumar, would follow the same logic – that the resignations were emotionally driven – in deciding the fate of the resignations of Members of the Parliament that hail from Telangana. Mrs. Mira Kumar is also in London for the same Conference, and shall return to India on the 28th; the date of Mr. Manohar’s return is not yet definite.