After being stripped of his Legislative Affairs ministry by Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, D Sridhar Babu resigned from CM's cabinet on Thursday, despite a huge outcry from the Telangana arm of the Congress in his support.
He reportedly sent his resignation letter to the CM through a messenger.
He resigned even as several Telangana Congress leaders, and even Digvijay Singh and AICC secretary R C Khuntia, tried to pacify him and ask him not to quit.
Sridhar Babu, a Telangana MLA, was quite abruptly stripped of his portfolio, which was then handed over to S Sailajanth, a Seemandhra politician. Kiran Kumar Reddy's move to do this is widely seen as an open challenge to the Congress' High Command against its decision to carve out a Telangana state, given that the Telangana Bill was set to be debated in the AP Assembly.