HYDERABAD - A week before elections start in Andhra Pradesh, Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) of superstar Chiranjeevi Thursday suffered a big jolt with another key leader resigning and branding it a ‘poisonous tree’.

Prakala Prabhakar, the party spokesman and an intellectual face in the party, handed over his resignation to the staff at PRP office here and then launched a bitter attack on the leadership without naming anyone.

Alleging that PRP was spreading poison, he termed the party a ‘company’ and said the allegations made by several others were true to a large extent.

‘There are certain undesirable elements in the party. They have cheated people. I don’t know why they did this?’ said Prabhakar, speaking from the party office.

Prabhakar’s exit is the second jolt to the party after last week’s resignation of C. Anjaneya Reddy, a former police officer who was party’s vice president.

He refused to withdraw his resignation even after Chiranjeevi apologised to him and promised to address the issues raised by him.

Dozens of leaders have quit PRP in the last two weeks to protest the manner in which nominations were given for assembly and Lok Sabha polls. Some alleged that Chiranjeevi’s brother-in-law and party general secretary Allu Aravind took bribes while against party ticket.

Prabhakar was sulking after he was allocated a Lok Sabha constituency in coastal Andhra.

Both Chiranjeevi and Allu Aravind tried to persuade him not to quit but he remained incommunicado.

Prabhakar, who was earlier with the Bharatiya Janata Party and worked as an anchor for a television channel, Thursday made a dramatic appearance at PRP office with his supporters.

He handed over the one-line resignation and addressed a press conference from the same podium he had used as the spokesman for media briefings.

‘I am a partner in their sin of raising hopes among people that PRP will bring change. To wash off this sin, I am walking outy,’ he said.

The news conference was televised live by several channels even as Chiranjeevi was busy in election campaign. Some PRP activists tried to stop Prabhakar saying he had no right to speak against the party from the party office.