The issue of Special Category Status (SCS) for Andhra Pradesh has again become the flavour of a rather hot summer season here, with political parties caught in a race to hog the limelight, the Opposition YSRC and Congress, in particular, finding in it a not-to-be missed opportunity to hit out and embarrass the Telugu Desam Government.
The political posture by Opposition parties is quite understandable given the mileage it gets from the sentiment attached to SCS in Andhra Pradesh.
But a surprise development is the way BJP, the avowed friendly ally of the ruling Telugu Desam Party, is trying to fish in troubled waters, by allowing Union Ministers and senior leaders to publicly speak out of turn and swear by the impossibility of A.P. getting the much-sought after SCS.
This, the BJP does even while claiming that the relations with the TDP were cordial with the party’s national secretary and in charge of AP, Sidharth Nath Singh even pompously proclaiming that the alliance is so strong that it would go to the 2019 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections together. Apparently, TDP leaders see a sinister design in this BJP’s running with hare and hunting with hound strategy, providing ammunition to Opposition’s fire power while appearing to be extending a helping hand to the State.
For all his political shrewdness, the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu too finds himself in a spot, unable either to take on the BJP-led NDA government as aggressively as the YSRC wants him to, by withdrawing support and walking out of the Union Cabinet or come up with a well-thought out cogent explanation on the status of SCS or the futility of pressing for it. He may not be able to dodge the issue further, considering the fact that not just his political detractors, others like student and youth groups are gearing up to launch an agitation to highlight the demand. Whatever the public posturing over getting SCS, there has been a strong view within the ruling establishment that it would be better to extract a special package, seek massive funds for building of the state capital, cover revenue deficit, completing the Polavaram project and whatever is due from AP Reorganisation Act, including incentives to industry rather than harping on the former. In fact, an elaborate internal exercise has been undertaken to compare SCS with benefits flowing out of special package and other existing Central schemes for attracting industry but it is not being made public for the fear of adverse reaction from people and the way it could give a handle to the Opposition. Some like the State BJP spokesman, Sudeesh Rambhotla, have already gone on record saying the State may not get much out of SCS.
They have a point given the stiff norms like hilly and difficult terrain, low population density, sizeable share of tribal population, strategic location bordering other countries, economic backwardness and poor financial status. AP barely manages to fulfil only the last norm.
Then there is this condition of getting the proposal approved by the National Development Council consisting of all Chief Ministers which is a quite a task.
The 14th Finance Commission too was dismissive of the SCS on the ground that the States were now in a better position with the substantial increase in flow of funds from the Centre. It is a Herculean task indeed but not an impossible one for any government to relax them to enable a vulnerable State to get benefits. Of course, the Congress anticipated these hurdles and decided against including it in the AP Reorganisation Act and simply made then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make an oral submission in the Rajya Sabha that AP will get SCS for five years. It is a different matter that the BJP bigwigs like the present Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister, M. Venkaiah Naidu who had pressed for extending it to ten years, say nothing about it now when their Cabinet colleagues, Rao Inderjit Singh earlier, Jayant Sinha and H. P. Chaudhary of late categorically rule out SCS.
The question then is should political parties continue to see SCS in isolation and play politics or take a leaf out of Tamil Nadu and come on the same page burying their political differences in jointly building pressure on Centre in getting what is due for a State so precariously placed financially and infrastructure-wise.
