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Hyderabad, Dec 11: Andhra Pradesh on Thursday plunged into a political crisis with the Congress high command setting the ball rolling to hive off a separate Telangana. The move split the ruling party, TDP and PRP legislators virtually on regional lines and 93 MLAs from the three parties and at least five MPs cutting across party lines submitted their resignations to the respective speakers in protest against the Telangana development.

Even as chief minister K Rosaiah feigned ignorance of the resignations, a Cabinet meeting late in the evening saw the Andhra and Rayalaseema ministers take on their Telangana counterparts. Rosaiah, whose weak administration was completely caught unawares by the accelerating fury of the Telegana campaign, watched helplessly.

"Ironically, the same ministers had earlier in the day appealed to the Congress MLAs who resigned to take back their resignations. The Congress move on Telangana now has the political leaders of the three regions at daggers drawn. It's chaos, it's mayhem," one ruling party legislator said. "I don't know why Sonia Gandhi has shot herself in the foot," he added.

Telengana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, whose 11-day fast fuelled a surge of violent sub-nationalism, sipped coconut water late on Wednesday to end his protest but remained in hospital under medical advice. But across Hyderabad, jubilation broke out masking the serious political uncertainities.

Of the 93 MLAs from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions who resigned, 53 belong to the Congress, 29 to TDP and 11 to PRP. The MPs who submitted their resignations to Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar were Lagadapati Rajagopal and Ananta Venkatarama Reddy (both Cong) and M V Mysura Reddy, Harikrishna and K Narayaswamy, all of the TDP. More MPs from both the parties are expected to follow suit.

The backlash to creating Telangana has put Congress on the backfoot and brought about a complete volte face by the two opposition parties on the separate state issue. Forced to kow-tow to angry party MPs from Andhra and Rayalaseema, Congress president Sonia Gandhi told them in New Delhi on Thursday that all views will be taken into account before a final decision is taken on the creation of Telangana. Late Thursday evening, a group of 22 Congress MPs were meeting with AICC observer Veerappa Moily to discuss a way out of the impasse that threatens to erode Congress's hold in AP.

"If an election is held soon, the Congress will be routed in all regions, whereas the credit for Telangana will be taken by KCR who would have no qualms in joining the BJP. In fact, the Congress staunch ally the MIM was also thrown in a tizzy and late at night mulling over whether Telangana would benefit it or would an independent state of Hyderabad.

A resolution had to be adopted by the state legislature to legally start the separation and the impending T resolution has plunged the opposition TDP and PRP into complete chaos. After having touted their support for Telangana until a day earlier (in the belief that it will never be okayed by the Congress bosses), both TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and PRP chief Chiranjeevi on Thursday called the decision to press for a resolution on Telangana unilateral. "The Congress has not taken the people who are the main stakeholders, apart from the political leaders, into confidence before announcing its decision on Telangana.
It proposed to move the resolution without following due procedures and guidelines and without holding a proper discussion in the house. "My legislators resigned because they feared they could not face the people in their respective constituencies," Naidu told the media even as the resignation drama unfolded in the assembly on Thursday.

Prajarajyam's Chiranjeevi said the Congress "attitude is not acceptable. If the state has to be divided, no region should suffer loss and this issue should be resolved first," he told the media and demanded a thorough and proper discussion on how to fulfil the aspirations of people of the other regions before the resolution on Telangana is passed. In New Delhi, the CPM expressed its strong reservations against the division of Andhra Pradesh.

In the morning, the assembly convened at 9.00am and legislators from the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions cutting across party lines were seen discussing the previous day's development. At 11am, Congress MLA J C Diwakar Reddy (from Tadipatri in Anantapur district) walked upto the speaker and submitted his resignation and this opened the floodgates. By 2pm, 93 of them had put in their papers.

Apart from Diwakar Reddy, prominent among those who submitted their resignations from the Congress are D L Ravindra Reddy from Mydokuru constituency in Kadapa district, E Pratap Reddy from Srisailam constituency in Kurnool district, T G Venkatesh from Kurnool and A Prabhakar Reddy from Surveypalli in Nellore district.

From the opposition TDP, D Umameshwara Rao from Mylavaram in Krishna district, D Narendra Kumar from Ponnur in Guntur district, B Gopalakrishna Reddy from Srikalahasti, P Keshav from Uravakonda in Anatapur district were among the 29 who resigned. From PRP, Shobha Nagi Reddy from Allagadda assembly constituency in Kurnool, K Rami Reddy from Banaganapalle and V Geeta from Pithapuram in East Godavari district were the prominent ones to resign.