HYDERABAD, India, 12 December 2006 — Andhra Pradesh Gov. Rameshwar Thakur on Sunday night accepted the resignation of Minister for Sports, Culture and Cinematography M. Satyanarayana Rao.
Satyanarayana Rao, who is better known as MSR, had submitted his resignation to Chief Minister Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy on Thursday, in the wake of the Congress party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha by-election in Karimnagar constituency.
After keeping the resignation letter with him for three days, Dr. Reddy forwarded it to the governor on the eve of the winter session of the assembly which commenced yesterday.
MSR had decided to quit the ministry owning moral responsibility for the party’s defeat at the hands of Telangana Rashtra Samiti President K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who retained the seat with a massive majority of over 200,000 votes over his nearest Congress rival T. Jeevan Reddy. MSR said he felt his responsibility to resign from the Cabinet as he was the only minister from Karimnagar district.
Incidentally, the byelection was caused by the resignation of KCR from the Lok Sabha after MSR challenged him to take a fresh mandate. MSR had thrown the challenge after KCR and A. Narendra quit the Manmohan Singh Cabinet in August this year in protest against the delay in the formation of a separate Telangana state by the UPA.
