Hyderabad, Aug 22 (IANS): As many as 29 Andhra Pradesh legislators loyal to YSR Congress Party leader Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy Monday submitted their resignations to protest the state government's alleged attempts to tarnish the image of the late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.

The legislators reached the state assembly in a procession and submitted their papers to legislature secretary Raja Sadaram as Speaker N. Manohar was away visiting his native Guntur district.

The MLAs who submitted their resignations include 26 of the Congress, two of the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and one from the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP).

Three legislators, who have already quit over the demand for a separate Telangana state, did not submit fresh resignations. One of them, Konda Surekha, said they would put pressure on the speaker to accept their earlier resignations.

Before reaching the assembly, all the 26 Congress legislators resigned from primary membership of the party. They faxed their resignations to state Congress headquarters Gandhi Bhavan, where, interestingly, a function was beig held for a formal merger of the PRP with the Congress.

Congress legislator P. Subhash Chandra Bose told reporters that they submitted the resignations in the prescribed format.

He reiterated that they resigned to protest the government's alleged attempts to taint the image of Rajasekhara Reddy, Jaganmohan Reddy's father.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has mentioned the late chief minister in the first information report (FIR) registered against Jaganmohan Reddy in a case of illegal assets.

"Our resignations are the best tributes we can pay to the tallest leader who twice brought the Congress party to power but is now being maligned by the same party," Bose said.

While 26 Congress legislators and one from the PRP reached the assembly in a bus to submit their resignations, two rebel MLAs of the TDP separately met legislature secretary to hand over their resignation letters.