PM, Sonia discuss Telangana, legislators' resignation

TELANGANA-CONG
 PM, Sonia discuss Telangana, legislators' resignation
   New Delhi, July 22 (PTI) Indian Prime Minister
 Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Friday
 held discussions on the contentious Telangana demand and on
 resignation of party legislators from the region ahead of
 Parliament's monsoon session.
   Sources said Congress General Secretary Ghulam Nabi
 Azad has been asked to hold fresh talks with party MPs, who
 have tendered their resignation to the Speaker resenting the
 delay in the formation of a separate state.
   The hour-long meeting was attended by members of the
 Congress Core Group including Finance Minister Pranab
 Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Gandhi's political
 secretary Ahmed Patel.
   Meanwhile, Azad met a delegation of lawmakers from
 Telangana who made it clear that they will not withdraw their
 resignations unless the Centre comes out with a positive
 decision on the statehood demand.
   Congress MP M Jaganath told PTI after the meeting that
 Azad asked them to give their viewpoints about the statehood
 demand in writing so that he can discuss them with their
 counterparts from Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra regions of
 AP.
   "We will again meet him on Monday. We will give our
 demands in writing. But nothing short of a Telangana state is
 acceptable to us," he said.
   Meanwhile, some lawmakers took objection to Azad's
 remarks last night that his main concern is, apart from the
 resignation of so many Congress MPs from Andhra Pradesh is
 that the state should not suffer any more because of this
 issue. PTI ETB
 ASR