The Telangana movement gathered further steam on Tuesday with Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao and party MP Vijay Shanthi resigning from their Lok Sabha membership in support of the demand for a separate state.

Chadrasekhar Rao and Shanthi faxed their resignation letter to the Lok Sabha speaker. Rao would meet the speaker personally in a day or two, TRS sources said.

State textiles minister Shankar Rao, who is in the US, has also faxed his resignation to the deputy speaker, taking the total number of state ministers who have quit to 12.

However, Rao has only resigned from the assembly and not from the cabinet.

75 MLAs and a dozen MPs had quit yesterday to mount pressure on the centre for an early announcement in favour of separate statehood demand.

Chandrasekhar Rao represents Mahaboobnagar Lok Sabha constituency while Shanthi represents Medak constituency.

TRS and the Telangana political joint action committee (JAC) have been demanding en masse resignations by MPs, MLAs of Congress and TDP to force the centre to accept the separate statehood demand.

Speaking at a meeting here last night, Chandrasekhar Rao described the resignations of public representatives as historical and demanded that the centre take the en masse resignations into cognisance for accepting the demand.

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After resigning, Cong MLAs meet Ghulam Nabi Azad

A day after tendering their resignations, Congress ministers, MPs and MLAs from Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday met senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and are understood to have demanded an early decision by the centre on the separate state issue.

Three senior ministers - K Jana Reddy, Ponnala Laxmaiah and Basavaraj Saraiah - reached here from Hyderabad last night to hold consultations with the Congress High Command on the issue after being summoned.

Two MPs - Madhu Goud Yashki and Ponnam Prabhakar - and one MLA and one MLC also met Azad, party general secretary in-charge, and are believed to have explained as to why the Telangana lawmakers resigned from their posts.

The ministers, MPs, MLAs and MLCs resigned from their seats yesterday to mount pressure on the centre and Congress to take an early decision on the contentious statehood demand

The lawmakers have been maintaining that the people of Telangana feel that only a separate state could fulfill their aspirations and that resignation will be the right way to protest.

However, home minister P Chidambaram had said on Monday that the centre is yet to take a final decision on the issue and that it will try to expedite the consultation process.

The Congress has also asked its lawmakers to wait till the consultation process is over, but they want an early decision.