Seemandhra ministers in the centre are shooting their resignations to the prime minister in protest against the cabinet's nod on division of the state and making path for the formation of a new Telangana state. After union minister Chiranjeevi’s resignation, human resource development (HRD) minister Pallam Raju has also decided to quit.

Minutes after union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde announced the cabinet decision on bifurcation, on Thursday, protests started in the region. Effigies of central ministers and other political leaders were burnt.

The pro-united Andhra employees of the state government and other agitators organised protests near the houses of public representatives, especially the Lok Sabha members, at several places in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. The Andhra Pradesh non-gazetted officers’ association president P Ashok Babu regretted that the public representatives in the two regions could not prevent the division.

Meanwhile, a 48-hour bandh, called by joint action committee, began on Friday morning to protest against the bifurcation of the state.  Shops, schools and colleges have been shut. Roads are being blocked in all major sections across the Andhra and Ralayaseema region. Transportation in Tirumala, where the famous Lord Venkateshwar temple is located, has also taken a hit.

Several state ministers, MLAs, MLCs from the Seemandhra regions, who met here, resolved to continue their protest against the proposed division. They said “If the resolution for formation of separate Telangana comes (to the assembly), whatever the conditions or context, we will oppose it.”
Meanwhile, YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy has called for a 72-hour bandh in the state against the cabinet's decision.

Reddy, who spent 16 months in jail in connection with a corruption case, has said he was not pained by the imprisonment as much as by the cabinet's decision. He was released from jail last month following a conditional bail granted by the special CBI court.

"The decision of the cabinet has ridiculed the process of passing a resolution in the assembly. Even when Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1956, a resolution was passed in both houses of the assembly. When Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand were created resolution was passed in the assembly. This unilateral style of functioning of government for votes has put the entire state in disarray," Reddy said.

Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday said that he will sit on an indefinite strike, starting Saturday, protesting against the decision of the centre on bifurcation of the state.

After bifurcation decision, the opposition leader and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu did not take a specific stand either for or against the centre’s decision to bifurcate the state. Reacting to the decision, Naidu said that the cabinet decision was “taken on political grounds, keeping the Congress’s electoral advantages in mind.” Speaking to the reporters at his residence, Naidu said the cabinet had failed miserably to address the issues raised by people of the different regions of the state. It also ignored the ongoing agitation in the Seemandhra region for the past two months.

The cabinet's resolution will now be sent to president Pranab Mukherjee with the recommendation that he refer it to the Andhra Pradesh state legislature for feedback.

Telangana is one of the three regions of Andhra Pradesh.  The other two regions are 13 districts of Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra regions, which is jointly called Seemandhra.