Hyderabad: The ruling Congress party’s struggle to contain a mass resignation spree after its announcement of a separate Telangana state has shifted from Andhra Pradesh to New Delhi.

Four Central ministers including Union Human Resource Development Minister Pallam Raju and Minister of State for Commerce Purandeswari have threatened to resign to protest the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. They will meet the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi later today.

Sources say the party faces a real possibility of revolt from 10 more MPs opposed to dividing Andhra Pradesh. Two MPs, Rayapati Sambasiva Rao and SPY Reddy, have already sent their resignations.

The Congress has 33 MPs from the state, 19 from the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema region.

The upset ministers and MPs met at the residence of Congress MP KVP Ramachandra Rao on Thursday to firm up their protest plan.

Since the announcement of Telangana, India’s 29th state, Congress ministers, MPs and legislators from the rest of the state have been facing angry protests outside their homes, which led to many of them announcing their intention to quit.

But in Andhra Pradesh, the party managed some damage control after several ministers from the coastal and southern districts of the state dialed down their dissent and backed off from their threats to quit.

Ruling out any rethink, the Congress dispatched its general secretaries on a firefighting mission last evening to Hyderabad – which is set to be the shared capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for 10 years. By late night, the party had managed to bring around nine of the 14 state ministers who had threatened to resign.

After a marathon meeting at Chief Minister Kiran Reddy’s camp office in Hyderabad, only five state ministers remained firm on their resolve, and said they had resigned, along with nine legislators.

Residents and leaders of Telangana, which includes the IT hub of Hyderabad, have been ecstatic with the fruition of a five-decade-long movement for statehood, the other two regions of the state, coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema say they have been betrayed.

The Chief Minister, who is from Rayalaseema, has told unhappy state legislators and ministers from his party, that like them, he was not happy with the Centre’s decision, but urged them to accept the new plans.

Amid continuing protests, the government imposed a ban on large gatherings in the Anantpur district in Rayalaseema.