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Taking exception to the remark of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley that funds could not be given on the basis of sentiments, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said on Monday that the united State of AP was divided against the wishes of the majority of people in 13 districts (nine coastal districts and four Rayalaseema districts) to honour the sentiments of the Telangana people and that both the national parties, the Congress and the BJP, were responsible for it.
Replying to the Governor’s address in the State Legislative Council, the Chief Minister said the bifurcation of the State was done in a most undemocratic manner and in the AP Re-organisation Act, 2014, certain provisions were included and assurances made in the Rajya Sabha by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, including the one on granting special category status to AP. The BJP leaders who were in the Opposition also heartily approved it, he said.
‘Double game’
Now, he said, the time of reckoning had come and the promise should be honoured. “It is most regrettable that the Union Finance Minister has remarked that on the basis of sentiments funds cannot be given. We did not want the bifurcation but you inflicted it on us. Now it is your responsibility to set things right,” he said.
He also condemned the stand of the YSR Congress leaders on the issue. “On the one hand, they say have full faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that he will grant the SCS, but again, they want to move no-confidence motion on the issue in Parliament. They want the TDP to support the move. If they have full faith in the Prime Minister, where is the need for a no-confidence motion? The YSR Congress is playing a double game,” he said.
Modi’s promise
He said the Telugu Desam Party also believed that the Prime Minister would do justice to the State, “as the honourable Prime Minister remarked in an election rally in 2014 along with me in Tirupati that the Congress Party had done great injustice to the State in the process of bifurcation and he would undo it.”
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