HYDERABAD: The political crisis in the Congress party in the State of Telangana further deepened with the resignation of 13 senior leaders who had joined the Grand Old Party from the Telugu Desam Party from the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) on Sunday.

It is known for the past few days senior party leaders, who have been in the party from the beginning have started a ‘Save Congress in Telangana’ movement to protect the party from what they described as a “leader who came into the Congress after shifting loyalties from party to party”, and called it a battle between the “original Congress” and “migrants from TDP.

Senior leaders are expressing dissatisfaction with the composition of PCC committees with these leaders who joined from the TDP, and this has led to a split of two factions within the Congress after the formation of these new committees.

The 13 leaders sent the resignation letter to the AICC Telangana in-charge Manikyam Tagore. Vem NarArticleender Reddy, Congress Mulug MLA Seethakka, Vijaya Rama Rao, Charagonda Venkatesh, Erra Sekhar, Mallesh, Janagayya Yadav, Dommati Sambayya, Dr Sathyanarayana, Patel Ramesh Reddy, Madhusudan Reddy, Subhash Reddy resigned from their PCC posts owing to allegations of senior leaders. Expressing displeasure that they were being blamed for other leaders not getting positions because of them, they stated in the letter that the high command should give their positions to those who alleged that are not getting them.

Senior Congress leader Jana Reddy refused to respond to the crisis in Congress. He said he would not speak publicly and that whatever has to be addressed will be discussed internally. He said that there had been many conflicts in the past regarding the committee and this was nothing new in Congress.