Hyderabad: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday demanded that the Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy make all his party MPs resign in order to bring pressure on the central government to confer the special status on Andhra Pradesh.
Naidu said the TDP MPs would also resign and join the fight for achieving all the major reorganisation promises like special status, Polavaram and Vizag railway zone. “It was CM Jagan who promised before the 2019 election that if elected, his regime would bend the necks of the Centre and that his party MPs would resign if necessary to achieve special status,” he added.
Addressing a press conference at Amaravati, the TDP chief said the time has come for the chief minister to decide whether to fight for the bifurcation promises or not. The central government has said in the Parliament that special status was a closed chapter. The union minister said in the House that the railway zone would not be granted for Vizag. On the other hand, the Vizag Steel Plant was being privatised with total disregard for the people’s sentiments,” he remarked.
The TDP chief asserted that many promises were made for AP during and after reorganisation only to ensure that it would develop on a par with other states. “It was mainly because the fully-developed Hyderabad capital was given to Telangana while AP was left with very limited resources. The TDP regime acted promptly and got the required mandals in Telangana merged with AP for achieving Polavaram. Whereas, the YSRCP government failed miserably in achieving every single promise of reorganisation,” he said.
The TDP chief said the previous regime put the Polavaram project on fast track and completed 70 percent of the work by spending Rs. 11,537 Cr in five years. “Now, the YSRCP regime’s failures became a curse for the project. The centre has reduced the project cost from Rs. 55,000 crores to Rs. 47,700 crores. Moreover, Jagan caused AP to lose its rights on projects. The central permission would have to be taken even for digging a small canal on all projects including Krishna and Godavarai rivers,” he said.
Naidu said the YSRCP government lost public trust and confidence in just two and half years. “To counter the rising public resentment, the YSRCP regime was playing a cheap diversionary game by filing false cases against the TDP leaders and by dividing people along caste, regional and religious lines,” he remarked.