Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said TDP president and State Chief Minister, after walking out of the BJP-led coalition government at the Centre, was walking into the trap laid by the Congress which was on the ‘deathbed’.
Speaking after attending the ground-breaking ceremony for State party office in Guntur district, the Home Minister said the Congress was counting its days but Mr. Naidu was trying to put the party on ventilator in the hope of garnering a handful of votes. “I want to tell Mr. Naidu that he is walking into the trap laid by the Congress. The UPA is reduced to NPA [Non-Performing Assets],” he said, adding that he saw a ‘conducive’ climate in A.P. for the party to grow. “Going by the prevailing climate here, I can say that no force on the earth can stop the BJP from surging ahead,” he said.
Pointing to the four BJP MLAs and MPs on the dais, Mr. Rajnath said he hoped to have a higher number of them in his next visit. He reminded that after Independence, the BJP was the only non-Congress party to have achieved a clear majority in Parliament in 2014. In its political journey, it had made many resolutions and tried to fulfil all of them. “The coalition dharma is one of them; it is not a political compulsion though; it is a political commitment,” he said.
“I am still unable to understand why Mr. Naidu pulled out of the coalition,” he said, adding that regardless of the TDP support, the BJP was committed to developing A.P. “I want to tell the people of this State that the Modi government will implement in letter and spirit the A.P. Reorganisation Act 2014.”
Mr. Rajnath said the Constitution did not mention anything like ‘Special Package’ and so the Centre chose to extend special treatment and listed the grants allocated to the State for development of projects like the new capital Amaravati, Polavaram project, the new universities promised and the Vizag-Chennai industrial corridor. Mr. Rajnath said the BJP had always kept the national interest above political interest.
State president Kanna Lakshminarayana was among others present.
