New Delhi, Nov 16 (IANS): Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar Tuesday rejected the resignations of MPs from Telangana region, including eight from the Congress and that of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao, parliament sources said.

The resignations were "not accepted" by the speaker as they were not in proper format, the sources said.

The resignations were not as per rules.

The MPs include eight from the Congress and two each from TRS and TDP. The MPs had resigned in July to press for their demand for a separate state of Telangana.

The Speaker's decision comes a week before the start of the winter session of parliament.

Congress MPs from Telangana have said they will raise the statehood demand during the session.

Congress MP Madhu Goud Yaskhi told IANS that they would continue to press their demand inside parliament for a separate state.

He said the government had indicated that the process of consultations on demand for carving out Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh was over and it was on the verge of taking a decision.

He said that party MPs from the region "will be constrained to take a tough decision" if the government does not fulfil its assurances concerning separate state.

Yaskhi said en masse resignations of party MPs were part of efforts to build pressure for a separate state.

Apart from Yaskhi, the Congress MPs whose resignations had been ejected by the Speaker include M. Jagannath, P. Balram Naik, Ponnam Prabhakar, G.S. Reddy, S. Rajaiah, G. Vivekanand and Suresh Shetkar.

The others whose resignation was rejected are TDP MPs Ramesh Rathod and Nama Nageswara Rao, TRS MP Vijayashanti and her party chief Rao.

The rejection of resignation of party MPs has come as a shot in the arm for the Congress whose leaders are apprehensive about the stance of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party towards the government in the winter session in view of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh next year.