Protesting against the granting of a separate statehood for Telangana, TDP MP and Nandamuri scion N Harikrishna resigned from Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

The MP met vice-president and Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari urging him to accept his resignation as the Congress-led UPA government did not plan to retract its decision of bifurcating Andhra Pradesh to create Telangana.

Harikrishna had announced his resignation on August 4 in Hyderabad where he visited his father’s memorial in NTR Gardens. Though the resignation is being seen as a fallout of the ongoing Seemandhra stir, it adds a new twist to the power tussle going on within the Nandamuri family for quite some time.

Harikrishna’s demand for a unified state is causing major embarrassment for the party and its chief Chandrababu Naidu. It was the TDP’s dramatic tilt towards Telangana that hurried the Congress party to announce the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh last month.

In fact, the TDP legislators participating in the Seemandhra agitation are targeting the Congress party for its inept handling of the issue and not the bifurcation per say. Thus, Harikrishna going all out with a Samaikhyandhra slogan is being seen as an open defiance of the party line.

Post his resignation, Harikrishna is planning a visit to the Seemandhra region for which he has been contacting various local NGOs and unions actively involved in the agitation. Interestingly, his decision comes at a time when Naidu is preparing to embark on a bus yatra across the strife-torn regions.

Party circles have already been anticipating trouble for Naidu in view of the TDP’s pro-Telangana decision and with Harikrishna going to the hinterland with a pro-Samaikhyandhra slogan will only make matters worse for the TDP chief.