Bifurcation issues, most significantly its impact on the State revenues and Special Category Status (SCS) continued to dominate Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan’s address to the joint session of Legislative Assembly and Council even after five years of the division of the State.
The only change was that the blame shifted from the Central Government to the previous TDP government, whom the new YSRCP government accused of “inept handling of challenges that emerged out of post bifurcation has resulted in empty treasury.” Another feature was that there were no caustic remarks against the Central government, which was the case in 2014, the year of the first address to the joint session. All that Mr. Narasimhan said was the government would continue its efforts to pursue with the Centre to implement the A.P. Reorganisation Act, accord the SCS, and expeditious completion of the Polavaram project. He stressed the government’s intention to seek cooperation from neighbouring States and the Centre to achieve the desired change.
In his close to 30 minutes speech, the Governor touched upon various key issues, including the Polavaram project. But, strikingly, there was no mention of development of Capital city Amaravati. Polavaram, the lifeline of Andhra Pradesh, and other projects would be completed in a definite time-frame. A third party enquiry by irrigation and technical experts was also envisaged to set right deficiencies.
