Nagam, three MLAs locks self to press for resignations

Suspended Tdp MLA Nagam Janardhan Reddy along with three other Tdp MLAs - Harishwar Reddy, Jogiramana and Venugopal Chary locked themselves in a cabin near the Speaker Nadendla Manohar peshi in the State Legislative Assembly premises on Saturday.

They announced that they would not come of the cabin unless the Speaker accepts their resignations. The assembly staff and security personnel were both surprised and shocked by this novel protest, especially at a time when the Speaker is not in town. The local police is not empowered to enter the premises unless asked by the Speaker and the assembly staff on their own cannot evict the MLAs.

Earlier, talking to reporters Nagam said a member of the legislative assembly he has a right to resign to his post and it would be unconstitutional to reject his resignation if it was submitted in the correct format. However, Nagam said the Speaker has been delaying the decision on their resignations for a very long time, which was unprecedented.

The former minister also clarified that he did not resign to enforce by-elections and re-contest from the same seat. "We have resigned from our posts to create constitutional crisis so as to pressurise the Centre on announcing statehood for Telangana region," he said. Nagam asked the Political and Students JACs to pressurise all the elected representatives from the region to resign afresh so that pressure could be mounted on the State and Centre Governments.