Hyderabad, December 11, 2006 - The resignation of Minister for Sports and Culture M. Satyanarayana Rao was accepted on Sunday evening three days after he put in his papers.

This followed Mr. Rao's request to Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy to accept the resignation he had sent through his personal secretary on December 7 owning moral responsibility for the Congress' debacle in the Karimnagar Lok Sabha byelection.

The Minister met Dr. Reddy at his residence to make a formal request.

As Mr. Rao did not agree to withdraw his letter, the Chief Minister forwarded it to Governor Rameshwar Thakur before the latter left for Tirupati with the recommendation to accept it. A Raj Bhavan spokesman said the Governor accepted the resignation.

Mr. Satyanarayana Rao was blamed by his partymen for having precipitated the byelection in Karimnagar by challenging the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president K. Chandrasekhar Rao to quit his Lok Sabha seat and seek a fresh mandate if the latter was so confident of the "Telangana sentiment."

With Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao getting re-elected by a record margin of 2.01 lakh votes, the Minister decided to quit.

When contacted, Mr. Rao said "I am quitting because it is the right thing to do. I am thankful to the Chief Minister for insisting that I withdraw my resignation, but I cannot do so."

Asserting that the "real dream" of the people of Telangana to have a State of their own would be realised only under Congress rule, he said the people should await AICC president Sonia Gandhi's decision on the issue. "As for Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao, my advice to him is that he should realise that the Karimnagar vote is for Telangana, but not for him."