: The possibility of Andhra Pradesh getting Special Category Status (SCS), which appears to be grim due to certain constitutional hurdles that reportedly tied the hands of the BJP, is likely to attain a certain degree of clarity when the issue comes up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha.
The likelihood of a debate on the private member Bill moved by K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao in the Upper House revived the State’s hopes of the Central government taking a sympathetic view of the issue but as far as the BJP is concerned, tabling the Bill is tantamount to flogging a dead horse.
The BJP has already made its stand clear, that there is no point in harping on SCS as the 14th Finance Commission did not make out any difference between special category States and others. Besides, some amendments are to be made to the Constitution if at all the BJP managed to garner the support of Opposition parties in favour of SCS to A.P. According to BJP’s A.P affairs in-charge Sidharth Nath Singh, the issue is for all practical purposes closed. He told media persons here recently that the Central government treated A.P as a ‘special State,’ and dismissed the SCS as a mere sentiment that’s not going to take the State forward. The BJP has since gone to town telling people that the Central government is doing much more for the development of A.P. than the potential benefits of SCS.
Contentious issue
The BJP and the TDP are still at loggerheads over this contentious issue but are restraining themselves from attacking each other after an understanding has been reached at the highest level in both parties to not fight over it lest the Opposition parties should derive political mileage out of the bitterness that has crept into their alliance.
Speaking to The Hindu , BJP State general secretary J. Syam Kishore described the Congress MP’s private member Bill as wastage of time and that the TDP would naturally support it for political reasons.
“We are very clear about it. Those who are raising the issue afresh in Parliament have no moral right to do that, having remained mute spectators when the A.P Reorganisation Bill was being passed,” he observed.
