Pallam Raju having second thoughts after meeting Sonia

Stung by resignations of Union ministers from Seemandhra, the Congress on Saturday got into damage-control mode and apparently tried to persuade Human Resource Development Minister M M Pallam Raju, who was advised by All India Congress Committee president Sonia Gandhi against acting in haste.

Raju had ignored similar suggestions by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and expressed his determination to quit his post on Friday.

However, after his meeting with Gandhi on Saturday, the minister “did not talk of resignation”.

He apprised the Congress chief of the seething anger among the people of Seemandhra region in the wake of the UPA government’s decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh and the problems in sharing of natural resources and lack of adequate educational institutions in the region.

Gandhi is learnt to have asked Raju to find solutions to these problems by working with the Group of Ministers on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, of which he is a member. Besides Raju, other ministers from the Seemandhra region Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy (MoS for Railways), Kavuri Sambasiva Rao (Textiles), K Chiranjeevi (Tourism), D Purandeswari (MoS Commerce) and Killi Kruparani (MoS IT and Communications) have also sent their resignations to the prime minister.

But the PMO has been silent so far on these developments, indicating that a rapprochement was in the works at the party level. There was no immediate word about any meeting of the other ministers with the party leadership.

Raju left for Hyderabad on Friday evening after a meeting with Gandhi and returned to the capital on Saturday evening for another meeting with her.

The minister said Gandhi asked him “not to act in haste and that I should try and find a resolution to the numerous issues by working with the GoM and with other leaders from all over Andhra Pradesh”.

Given the anger against the Congress over the decision to carve out a separate Telangana, the Congress admits that the political futures of many of its leaders in Seemandhra are bleak. However, the party hopes to ride on the positive sentiment in the Telangana region and hopes to get the support of the TRS to put up a better performance at the hustings.