Nine ruling Congress party members of India’s parliament resigned on Monday to press their demands for a separate state of Telangana, roughly halving the government’s majority and heaping more pressure on the beleaguered party. The members giving up their seats called for government action on the long-standing demand for a new state hours after dozens of Congress lawmakers stepped down from the assembly in Andhra Pradesh, the southern state in which the Telangana region is located. If accepted by the house speaker, the resignations are likely to further delay the ruling coalition’s attempts to pass long-delayed reform bills key to continued growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, but they are unlikely to lead to the fall of the government.
Government hand-wringing over the four-decades old demand has lead to violent street protests in Andhra Pradesh, which is likely to be a crucial battleground state in a 2014 federal election, sending 42 members to parliament in New Delhi. Losing nine MPs will put Congress and its allies on the back foot when parliament reopens on Aug. 1, and may disrupt business in a chamber that has lost months of legislative work because of opposition protests over corruption.
The failure to resolve the issue of the new state, after the government gave in-principle support for the creation of Telangana last year, underlines a sense of drift in Congress, with party chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seemingly unable to take big decisions. “It was an accident waiting to happen. In a way, it was another case of mishandling a political situation,” said political analyst Amulya Ganguli.
“(The government) will limp along for some time. It will be quite a stormy session.”
FORCING THE ISSUE: Seven lower house MPs tendered their resignations in person to their speaker of parliament, and two others sent their resignations by fax, an upper house lawmaker who also stepped down from his seat told reporters.
“We want to identify ourselves with the aspirations of the people of Telangana,” said K. Keshav Rao. The resignations must be accepted by the speaker and that may take weeks. Analysts cautioned that the resignations may not be accepted in order to give Congress time to strike a deal with the rebel MPs and avoid losing their votes in parliament. “It makes it more complicated for the government but the government is not in trouble,” said political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan, adding that the political opposition was also weak in parliament. “It will force the Congress party to make a decision on Telangana.”
