After having darshan of Lord Venkateswara, AICC president Rahul Gandhi reiterated to what he termed his ‘holy commitment’ to accord the Special Category Status (SCS) to Andhra Pradesh on coming to power.
The promise is free of riders and would be implemented irrespective of whether the party came to power in A.P. or not.
Mr. Gandhi on Friday addressed a public meeting at SV University’s Tarakarama Stadium, the same venue from where Narendra Modi, as the prime ministerial candidate, had promised in 2014 to accord SCS to the State for ten years.
It was in this context that Mr. Gandhi harped on the importance of an assurance and the commitment to adhere to it. The Prime Minister is not any random person, his voice is the voice of every single Indian. The word of Manmohan Singh or Narendra Modi, whoever it may be, is the promise made by the entire nation to A.P., he said.
“When we come to power at the Centre, no force in this world can stop us from giving SCS, which rightfully belongs to A.P., ” he said
Mr. Gandhi recalled that it was at the same venue that Mr. Modi had made several promises, ‘all of them remaining unfulfilled.’
‘Insensitive act’
He alleged that the government had remained unmoved over the plight of debt-ridden farmers, but had the heart to write off ₹3.5 lakh crore debts of ‘suit boot’ industrialists.
The AICC president came down on the Prime Minister for participating in a documentary photo shoot at a national park, even as security personnel bled to death after the Pulwama terror strike.
“Mr. Modi, who claims to be a nationalist, was smiling and posing for photo shoot three and a half hours after our soldiers bled to death in the attack,” he lamented.
Dubbing the act ‘insensitive,’ he said the Prime Minister should be ashamed of his act.
PCC president N. Raghuveera Reddy translated Mr. Gandhi’s speech into Telugu.
Senior party leaders Oommen Chandy, M.M. Pallam Raju, T. Subbirami Reddy, K. Bapiraju, N. Kirankumar Reddy, Chinta Mohan, KVP Ramachandra Rao, P. Lakshmi, J.D. Seelam, and Chenga Reddy were present.
