Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Thursday challenged the Telugu Desam Party and the BJP to back the private member’s Bill moved in the Rajya Sabha by party MP K.V. Ramachandra Reddy to grant special status to the newly bifurcated State of Andhra Pradesh.
Pointing out that though it was not part of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, he stressed that it was part of a Cabinet decision passed by the erstwhile Congress-led United Front government, a decision that has not been withdrawn by the successor BJP-led NDA government.
“The government is hiding behind the fact that it is not part of the Act,” Mr. Singh said, adding “that some of the hill States were given special status without it being part of the Acts under which they were created.”
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Mr. Singh was speaking at a press briefing arranged by Rajya Sabha MP K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao at which APCC chief N. Raghuveera Reddy, too, was present.
Retiring Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh recalled that when Uttarakhand was created in 2002, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had given the State special status even though it was not part of the Act.
Mr. Ramesh said that before coming to power Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu had promised that the new State would be given special status not just for five but 10 years.
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He also alleged that Mr. Naidu was deliberately not permitting Mr. Ramachandra Reddy’s Bill to be taken up for consideration before the Rajya Sabha is adjourned sine die on Friday, because that would expose the party’s opposition to granting Andhra Pradesh special status.
The Congress’s focus on making the granting of special status to Andhra Pradesh into an issue is part of its efforts to make itself politically relevant in a region that was its bastion till 2014.
That year, after the bifurcation of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, the party was out for a duck in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the new Andhra Pradesh.