Telugu Desam Party national president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday wondered why the BJP was suspecting his party when he had no national ambitions.
In a teleconference with party MPs in Delhi, Mr. Naidu said he was mobilising support from other parties only for the no-confidence motion against the BJP-led NDA government on the issue of Special Category Status. Barring the BJP, all other parties have expressed their support to the motion.
He failed to understand why the Centre was so adamant and not prepared to grant SCS and implement the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act. He wondered if Andhra Pradesh was not part of India.
Hard decision
As alliance partner, the TDP had waited patiently for four Union Budgets but when it found that there was nothing for the State in the latest and the last full-fledged Budget before the general elections, it was forced to take a hard decision.
In the first phase, the party withdrew its two Ministers from the Union Cabinet, but there was no conciliatory move from the NDA government. On the contrary, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made it clear that SCS could not be given and that sentiment could not be equated with quantum of assistance. The people of A.P. felt humiliated and betrayed and the TDP had to pull out of the NDA.
YSRCP’s ‘double game’
Mr. Naidu wanted MPs to fight and continue to build pressure on the Centre till the no-trust motion was admitted. He told them that their no-trust motion was genuine unlike the one being moved by the YSRCP as the latter had no sincerity. It was playing a double game. On one hand, the party was lobbying with the Prime Minister for withdrawal of CBI cases against the party president Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and party MP V. Vijayasai Reddy and on the other moving the motion.
