Congress MPs from Telangana on Tuesday called off their hunger strike as Andhra Pradesh govt announced it would withdraw all cases against pro-statehood students and other protesters in connection with the agitations for and against bifurcation of the state.

Just 30 hours after the party MPs from the region launched an indefinite hunger-strike on the issue, Home Minister P Sabita Indra Reddy told reporters in Hyderabad on Tuesday, that the government has decided to withdraw all cases against the students and other protestors in accordance with the request made by all political parties in the state Assembly during its winter session.

“This is also intended to establish peace in the state,” the Home Minister said emerging from a high-level meeting with Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and later with a group of ministers from Telangana.

The issue relating to the cases had rocked the winter session of the state Assembly with Telangana Rashtra Samiti disrupting proceedings for three days.

The Congress government had then refused to accept the demand for unconditional withdrawal of all cases despite its own members joining hands with opposition parties.

The hunger-strike was a desperate move; according to the MPs own admission, to win back confidence of Telangana people in Congress as TRS was seen as hijacking the statehood movement.

Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police K Aravinda Rao and senior law officers of the government were also consulted before taking the decision.

“Now, we have decided to lift all the other cases as well after taking legal opinion,” the Home Minister said.

In all, 1667 cases were registered against 8047 persons in connection with the agitations in Telangana, Andhra and Rayalaseema regions of the state between December 2009 and September 2010.

Of the total cases, 565 “non-serious” ones against 2437 persons were withdrawn as per the statement made in the Assembly early this month, Sabita Indra Reddy said, adding the government took a decision to withdraw 185 more cases against 900 persons on Monday.

“We have classified the cases into two categories with the first consisting of simple cases like rasta-rokos, rail rokos, violation of prohibitory orders, making provocative statements instigating violence, attempt to commit suicide and insulting national leaders by garlanding their statues with objectionable material. The second category includes serious offences like burning of government and private properties and assault on public servants, the Home Minister said. The government has decided to withdraw all cases “in the interest of career prospects of youth and students”, she added.

Referring to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s statement of 9th December 2009, on withdrawal of cases, Sabita Reddy said only about 400 cases were registered in connection with the agitation for separate Telangana by that period.

“But we took the cases registered subsequently also into consideration and studied each case thoroughly”, she said.