Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan will meet the five MPs of YSR Congress again on Wednesday to decide on their resignations. Earlier, she met them individually on Tuesday, 29 May, to verify their papers and ascertain their true intentions on quitting. They submitted their resignations on the last day of the Parliament Budget session on 6 April in protest against the Centre for not granting special status to Andhra Pradesh. This time, she may accept their resignations, sources said.
On 29 May, the five MPs told the Speaker that she should accept their papers without any delay so that byelections could be held on their seats and the outcome can be interpreted as public referendum on the special status issue. However, the Speaker had urged the MPs to re-think on their decision to quit their seats and told them that she would meet them again in the first week of June to take a final call.
YSR Congress senior MP from Nellore, Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy told this newspaper that the resignations would be accepted on 6 June as their decision was final and firm. “We think the Speaker might accept our papers and our seats would fall vacant with immediate effect and byelections would be held soon,” he said on phone. The other four MPs are: Y.V. Subba Reddy (Ongole), V. Varaprasada Rao (Tirupati-SC), P.V. Mithun Reddy (Rajampet) and Y.S. Avinash Reddy (Kadapa). Each of them told the Speaker that their decision was not based on emotions or under pressure from any quarter. Andhra Pradesh CM and TDP president Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday wondered why there was a delay in accepting the resignations of the YSR Congress MPs. He said that they must have been afraid of facing bypolls in their seats. But Rajamohan Reddy dared Naidu to win the byelections, if he had the guts to contest.