Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday said the BJP leaders should prevail on their high command to undo the injustice meted out to Andhra Pradesh instead of finding fault with its ally (TDP) and felt there was no difference between the BJP and the Congress. He asserted that the State’s interests could be protected only with the support of all parties.
He said his party’s single-point agenda was to secure the benefits promised under whatever name they were given and that it (TDP) would go by the public sentiment irrespective of the stand of the other parties.
Addressing the party’s coordination committee meeting here, Mr. Naidu claimed that the TDP had not compromised on the Special Category Status (SCS) and insisted that the full assistance A.P. would have got with the SCS should be extended as promised by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
He accused YSR Congress (YSRC) president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of raking up the SCS to serve his political ends and pointed out that it was the YSRCP which welcomed the Union Budget 2018 which contained nothing for the State.
Mr. Naidu said the impressive development that the government had so far achieved after bifurcation in spite of not being given the expected hand-holding by the Centre, was due to own efforts and it did not mean that the BJP could renege on its commitments.
The State would not keep quiet if the Central government provided financial assistance to other States and showed an empty hand to it, he said, expressing the apprehension that resignations by the TDP MPs and its Ministers in the Union Cabinet might not be of any use.
The TDP leaders should keep up the fight in Parliament to ensure that the APRA was not put on the back-burner.
