Special status for AP: Cat-and-mouse game starts in TD, BJP camps

Hyderabad: A cat and mouse game has started in the Telugu Desam-Bharatiya Janata Party camp in Andhra Pradesh. While the ruling Telugu Desam is trying to blame the BJP by raking up key issues like non-release of promised central funds and special category status, the BJP at a meeting in Kadapa on Sunday decided to take up agitations against the state government, particularly on Rayalaseema issues.

BJP leaders said they would visit the Srisailam dam backwaters on May 5. They also plan to take the state government to task for locating all projects and schemes in the coastal districts while neglecting Rayalaseema, BJP youth wing president Vishnuvar-dhana Reddy said.

Read: Centre must grant special category status to AP: Chandrababu Naidu

TD national president and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has been expressing his displeasure over the Centre not heeding to his several requests to implement the various provisions in the AP Reorganisation Act.

TD leaders have started targeting the BJP in the state for the Centre rejecting special category status for the state. Mr Naidu has reportedly commented recently that the Supreme Court had come to the rescue of AP and did justice on the contentious sharing of assets and liabilities of state institutions listed in the Ninth and Tenth Schedules of the AP Reorganisation Act but not the Centre though he has requested it to intervene for the last few months. He has said in public that he has visited Delhi 30 times and represented AP’s matters but nothing has happened.

Read: Special Status issue takes TD-BJP ties to new low

Mr Naidu's plan is to blame the Centre for not kee-ping its promises and choking the flow of funds to the state. His intention is to target and weaken the BJP.
Against this background, the Niti Aayog will be holding a day-long meeting on May 4 in Delhi to review the implementation of provisions in the AP Reorgani-sation Act.

There are speculations that knowing the mind of Mr Naidu, the BJP may try to move away from the alliance with TD and start reaching out to YSRC by the time of the 2019 elections.

The BJP expects that YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy who is facing a crisis within the party, with many legislators and leaders defecting to the TD, and is fighting many cases in courts will yield more Lok Sabha seats while he stays confined to the AP Assembly. However, it is still too soon to see a picture since the elections are three years away.

“If the reports that the TD wants to move away from us is true, it is unfortunate. We never tried to weaken the TD. In fact we have pumped a lot of funds to AP and we never betrayed mitra dharma. We are not for moving out of the alliance, we know that the Central funds that have been sanctioned have not been spent for the intended purpose,” AP State BJP president and Visakhapatnam MP K. Haribabu said on Sunday.

But Mr Vishnuvardhan Reddy said, “So far, we have been a bit hesitant in attacking TD, but we will not tolerate the manner in which the ruling party has been going at us. We know how to expose the state government.

As part of it at the meeting at Kadapa to-day, we decided to take up agitations against the state government for the injustice it is doing to Rayalaseema.”