VIJAYAWADA: Hours after Parliament was adjourned sine die without admitting the notices of no-trust-motion on Friday, the AP Legislative Assembly adopted a resolution demanding a special session of Parliament to discuss special category status to the State and implementation of the provisions of the AP State Reorganisation Act, 2014.
While moving the resolution on Friday, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu took a dig at the Opposition parties in the State for targeting him instead of the Centre over the special category status issue. He also bitterly criticised the Centre for remaining indifferent to State’s problems.
Earler, Naidu who pedalled to Assembly on a bicycle along with his party MLAs and MLCs as a mark of protest against the Modi government’s failure to grant SCS to State, ruled out the resignation of his MPs. Referring to rival YSRC MPs’ resignation from Parliament, Naidu questioned the political experience of the Opposition party in dealing with issues. “My party MPs were elected by people to fight to protect the interests of the people, not run away from their responsibilities. We will continue our fight till we achieve special category status,” he said.
Training his guns on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Assembly, he sought to know how Modi, who promised to do justice, defend himself after “showing an empty hand to the State”. “He (Modi) doesn’t want to listen to our woes because he enjoys absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. If the BJP did not have enough numbers, would he not have kept his promise? I tried my best to convince the BJP, but they are indifferent to the interests of AP as they are not dependent on the support of other parties,” he alleged.Though the issue of setting up a Cauvery board is hardly a knotty issue, the BJP preferred to adjourn the House citing disruption of proceedings by AIADMK MPs to dodge no-trust motion, he said.
Expressing apprehension that the Centre might resort to vindictive measures against the State henceforth, Naidu cited the raids being carried out by the Central investigation agencies in various states for settling political scores. “We have seen what happened in Tamil Naidu. The Centre took control of the Tamil Nadu government. But, the BJP could not escape the people’s wrath and only secured 800 odd votes in the byelection for an Assembly constituency in Chennai. Always it is clear that those playing havoc with sentiments of people will have to be ready for paying heavy price and no one is exception for that.”