The YSR Congress has asked the Telugu Desam Party withdraw its support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre as the latter had failed to grant special category status to the State as assured on the floor of Parliament.
Even though the Centre was dodging the special category status, the State was maintaining a stoic silence on the issue. The TDP should come out of the NDA coalition instead of mortgaging the Telugu pride in the national capital, YSRC spokesman K. Parthasarathi said.
It was high time Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu-led A.P. government served an ultimatum to the Centre since the BJP leaders pressed for the grant of the special category status while they were in opposition.
With two BJP Ministers in its Cabinet and two TDP Ministers in the Union Cabinet, the TDP should mount pressure on the Centre to grant special category status as it would help in the accelerated development of the new State, the YSRC spokesperson said.
“There is no reason why the Centre should backtrack on the assurance given in Parliament and YSRC president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy had been reminding it about the assurance at every given opportunity,” he said
Judicial probe sought
Meanwhile, YSR Congress MLA R.K. Roja demanded that the State government order a judicial inquiry into the circumstances that resulted in the suicide of M. Rishiteswari, an architecture student of Acharya Nagarjuna University, and arrest the abettors of the crime immediately. She also condemned the lathi-charge on students who went to the Chief Minister’s camp office in Vijayawada to represent the matter.
Ms. Roja alleged that the TDP was trying to hush up the incident. The officials including the Principal of the college should be immediately arrested as he did not act upon the complaints lodged against ragging by a section of students, she said. The YSRC on its part would depute a fact finding committee to the university to know about the details, Ms. Roja added.
‘It is high time that the TDP serves an ultimatum as the Centre has failed to grant special status to AP’
