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Andhra CM Naidu to fast in Delhi on February 13 over state not getting special category status
The TDP’s protests are seen as Naidu’s efforts to apparently take his fight against the Modi government to the national capital to give momentum to his efforts in uniting opposition parties into an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front on the national level for the coming elections.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu will hold a day-long relay fast in New Delhi on February 13, the last day of the Parliament’s budget session and its last sitting ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, in protest against how the Narendra Modi government allegedly deceived his state in its rebuilding after bifurcation.
TDP Lok Sabha member Avanti Srinivas told Hindustan Times that Naidu shared his plans on his proposed fast at a parliamentary party meeting at his Undavalli residence in Amaravati on Saturday. He also directed party MPs to spare no efforts in taking the NDA government to task in the current session in a bid to show people how the Modi government “cheated” Andhra’s people.
In this endeavour, the TDP MPs will present Jana Sena leader Pawan Kalyan’s fact-finding report which says the Centre is due to extend ₹75,000 crore to Andhra Pradesh as a part of its bifurcation related commitment. Besides, they will also will cite Lok Satta chief Jayaprakash Narayan’s report on the same subject to buttress their argument. Naidu claims that his state is due to get ₹1.25 lakh crore from the centre under different heads after bifurcation.
The Andhra Pradesh Pratyeka Hoda Sadhana Samithi, headed by Chalasani Srinivas, gave a call for state bandh on February 1 in protest against the BJP government’s failure to grant special category status come to the state with the CPI, CPI (M) and the Congress backing the agitation. Samithi leaders also a few days back met Naidu to seek his support.
The TDP’s protests are seen as Naidu’s efforts to apparently take his fight against the Modi government to the national capital to give momentum to his efforts in uniting opposition parties into an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front on the national level for the coming elections.
After the parliament session ends, he is also planning to hold an opposition conclave in Vijayawada followed by a rally with 20 lakh people, on the lines of the one organised by West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on January 19.
Naidu’s TDP pulled out the NDA government during the budget session last year over his state not being granted special category status, one of the major promises of the NDA after the state was divided in 2014.
BJP’s Andhra Pradesh unit president Kanna Lakshminarayana, however, made light of Naidu’s proposed fast in Delhi, saying no one believes the TDP chief. “Chandrababu Naidu will only expose himself but not the NDA government with his protest,” he said at a meeting in Tirupati. The BJP leader said the NDA government has delivered more assistance to Andhra than what it had promised.
