VIJAYAWADA: APCC president N Raghuveera Reddy on Wednesday described chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu as one who is acting as a ‘slave’ to BJP. “Otherwise, why is he keeping quiet though the Union government, led by the saffron party, has made it clear that it will not accord special category status to Andhra Pradesh?” Raghuveera Reddy asked.
The PCC chief said Chandrababu Naidu has shown his true colours when he advised his party MPs at a meeting Tuesday that they should reconcile to the fact that the NDA would not deliver special category status for AP and on top of it, the MPs should extend full support to the amendment sought to be made to the Land Acquisition Act by the Centre.
“So far, we have been asking Naidu to lead an all-party delegation to Delhi to convince the Centre to deliver special category status as it was the saffron party which had fought for 10-year special category status when the Congress offered it for five years when the AP State Reorganisation Bill was passed in 2014. Now, with Naidu telling the MPs to forget about the special category status, it has become clear that both BJP and the TDP are equally guilty. There is no point in demanding the TDP to lead a delegation to Delhi for special category status,” he said, at a news conference here.
Raghuveera Reddy said the Congress would not compromise on fighting for special category status. He said former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would bring pressure in Parliament. Already, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has placed the demand for early fulfilment of BJP’s promise, he said.
As regards amendment to the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, the APCC chief said that the TDP and the BJP were among all those parties which had supported the bill when it was moved during the Congress regime.
But now the BJP is bringing in an amendment that would hurt the interests of the farmers and for strange reasons, the TDP was supporting the BJP though it knew that it was anti-farmer in nature, he said.
He said even the K Sivaramakrishnan Committee, in its 187-page report, submitted to Union home minister Rajnath Singh in August last year had suggested that fertile lands be spared from land acquisition for construction of capital for Andhra Pradesh. The PCC chief wanted to know why the TDP was so obsessed with snatching away of lands from farmers along the Krishna river bank. “Ten ministers and 500 officials are camping in the capital region with only one objecitve- taking away lands from farmers for construction of capital. Don’t they have any work other than harassing the farmers?” he asked.
The PCC chief said he had doubts over the intentions of the BJP and the TDP in completing the Polavaram Project.
BJP’s sincerity became known when it allotted only Rs 100 crore for the Rs 16,000 crore project while the state government is obsessed with taking up Pattiseema, frittering away Rs 1,600 crore.
The Centre had already said that it would reimburse the amount if the state government spent the money on Polavaram Project. But the state government was not in a mood to listen to sane advice, he said.