After being told to (a battle-field slang seems appropriate, doesn't it?) beat it by the CM N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Sunday night, Home Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy and Srikakulam MLA Dharmana Prasada Rao are yet to retreat from the virtual warfield of allegations and accusations that they are currently enmeshed in.
For starters, it is still uncertain whether either of them plan on submitting their resignations.
Some sources insist that Dharmana Prasada Rao has already submitted the same letter of resignation that he had submitted to the CM, earlier in August, when the accusations against him first came to light.
Meanwhile leading media houses like NDTV maintain that the ministers are yet to submit their letters of resignation, and that they have merely had a meeting with the CM (as sightings of Dharmana leaving the CM's residence were taken to be conclusive evidence for the hypothesis that the disgraced MLA had submitted his resignation).
Earlier this month, the CM N Kiran Kumar Reddy was instructed by the party High Command to stop shielding the ministers who have been accused by the CBI in their chargesheet. Following the CBI's investigations, Kiran Kumar Reddy had shown a stoic refusal to let the CBI prosecute Dharmana Prasad Rao, and the other "tainted" ministers of the state Cabinet.
While Sabitha Indra Reddy was charged as being involved in the Dalmia Cements fraud, Dharmana Rao was named in the list of participants in Jagan's Disproportionate Assets case.
For now, an official confirmation of the resignation (or the lack of it), of these two politicians is conspicuous by its absence.