VIJAYAWADA: Miffed over Amit Shah’s comments, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday lashed out at the BJP president questioning his “audacity” to meddle in the state government’s affairs.
On Sunday evening, at a press conference in New Delhi, Amit Shah had observed that the TDP government had not taken up any construction work in capital city Amaravati and expressed doubts over the genuineness of the utility certificates submitted by Andhra Pradesh.
“Let the Prime Minister or his Cabinet ministers ask, we will reply,” he fumed, adding hat “people like Amit Shah have no right to interfere in administrative matters”. Stating that utility certificates (UC) of `1,509 crore Central funds spent on construction activities were submitted to the Centre, he wondered how such a paltry amount was enough to build a capital city.
Naidu claimed that though NITI Aayog cleared several of the bills submitted by the state government, the Centre was sitting on the files and refusing to release funds. “Works worth `24,000 crore are under progress in the capital city. No amount was spent on acquiring lands as farmers voluntarily gave up their lands for the capital city. Works taken up include creating 45 lakh sq ft of office area. Quite contrary to Amit Shah’s claims, capital city plans are with us and not in Singapore,” he said.
Accusing Shah and the BJP of intentionally misleading people by fabricating lies, he wanted to know why special category status was not granted to the state. “Does it require UCs. Does filling the gap of revenue deficit need UCs? Why are they not clearing the bills of Polavaram works, which is a national project ?” he questioned.
The TDP chief said the State got a raw deal in the Union budget. “They claim they are doing everything for the state. Fact is they are not giving the funding promised in the AP State Reorganisation Act. They (Central Government) can spend `1 lakh crore on Delhi metro rail project. They can spend `98,000 crore on Dolera City in Gujarat, but they only give `1,500 crore to Andhra Pradesh for building its new capital city,” he said. He demanded that the NDA government come out with a white paper on what it gave to the state and what it spent in Gujarat and other states. Naidu said the BJP was launching indirect attacks on the TDP by using YSR Congress and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan. “It says it will contest alone in the state, but the BJP won’t get even one per cent of the votes.”
Referring to Amit Shah’s claim of having the mobile phone numbers of 72 crore people in the country, Naidu said the BJP chief would use them to threaten people, but the Andhra Pradesh government would use the same to better the lives of people through its Real Time Governance (RTG).
Later in the day, BJP state president Kanna Lakshminarayana ridiculed the TDP chief for his remarks against Shah and said Naidu had lost his mental balance. He described TDP Mahanadu as ‘Maya Nadu’ creating an illusion of development in the State under the TDP’s leadership.
Hours after attacking CM, TDP expels Mothkupally
Hyderabad: On a day the TDP leadership pompously celebrated the birth anniversary of its founder NT Rama Rao from the dais of Mahanadu by taking potshots at its political rivals, one of the party’s senior leaders, Mothkupally Narsimhulu, on Monday created an embarrassing situation for the party by coming down heavily on party supremo and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.This attracted the ire of the party leadership and by evening, TDP TS president L Ramana expelled Narsimhulu from the party, saying that he had committed an unpardonable sin by revolting against the party.