Keeping to his promise of quitting in the event parliament passes the bill to create a separate state of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy submitted his resignation to governor ESL Narasimhan on Wednesday afternoon, and it was accepted.

Reddy, who is opposed to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, informed the governor that he will not be the caretaker chief minister either.

Reddy had earlier announced his decision to quit from the CM’s post and the party in protest against the central government’s decision to “divide the Telugus for the sake of votes and seats". Eight of Reddy’s cabinet colleagues present at his press conference, held in the CM’s camp office – Pithani Satyanarayana, S Sailjanath, M Mahidhar Reddy, TG Venkatesh, Kasu Venkata Krishna Reddy, Erasu Pratap Reddy, K Parthasarathy and Ganta Sreenivasa Rao – expressed their support to the outgoing CM.

Flanked by the ministers and over a dozen MLAs and MLCs, Reddy alleged that the Congress leadership, in collusion with main opposition BJP, had ensured passage of the bifurcation bill in Lok Sabha, setting aside all democratic conventions and practices. “We strongly condemn the shady deal between the Congress and the BJP is ensuring passage of the bill, much against the interests of the Telugu-speaking people,” he said.

Reddy evaded replies when asked whether he would float a new party as was being reported. "It is not my future or political career at stake. The interest of the Telugu-speaking people on the two sides of the divide is at stake and I have decided to quit in resentment against the unilateral manner in which the party leadership went ahead with bifurcation," he said.

Recalling his family’s association with the Congress since 1962, he said it was not an easy decision to quit the party that “gave me the post of chief minister”. But, Reddy said, he was compelled to take the decision as it was against Telugu people and the Congress leadership had completed the process “without the involvement of Telugus”. MPs from the affected area were not given an opportunity to even study the bill and the concerns of the people of the region were not taken into consideration, he said.

Clarifying that he was not against the aspirations of the people from Telangana region, Reddy said he was opposed to the decision to divide the state as it was not in the interests of the two regions. Development, he added, would suffer with immediate effect while disputes between the two states in power, irrigation, education, employment and other sectors would become annual feature.