Guntur: Ahead of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit to Guntur to launch the BJP’s election campaign in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday, Telugu Desam Party workers tore flex boards with the PM’s photographs even as Governor ESL Narasimhan arrived at Gannavaram to receive Modi.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu didn't follow protocol and didn't show up to receive PM Modi at Gannavaram airport in Vijaywada.
TDP, Congress and Left parties are protesting PM Modi's visit to the state and large posters of "No more Modi" and "Modi never again" were seen on the roads. TDP protesters waved black flags and balloons, when a BJP convoy was on its way to the rally spot in Guntur. In some places, protesters burnt tyres and PM's effigies.
“It’s a black day for Andhra people. If he (Narendra Modi) sets his foot in our home state, our soils will become unholy as he is a betrayer, belying his own assurances given to our bifurcated state such as special category status,” Naidu said in a teleconference with party workers on Saturday.
Naidu pulled the TDP out of the NDA last March over the Centre’s refusal to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh has 25 Lok Sabha seats. The TDP won 15 seats in the 2014 general elections in alliance with the BJP which won two of the four seats it contested. The YSR Congress won eight seats.
