Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday said his party would not join the NDA even if the BJP approaches it for the 2019 general elections. Naidu reiterated that he has no prime ministerial ambitions. Asked if the TDP would join the NDA for the 2019 elections if the BJP promises other benefits to AP, he said, “No. I just want that justice is done to my State.”
He said the party’s no-confidence motion against the NDA government was a battle of “morality versus majority” and thanked the other opposition parties for supporting the TDP’s no-trust motion.
Asserting that the TDP had joined the NDA in 2014 only to ensure justice to the people of the State, Naidu said, “We are not power hungry. We never aspired for Cabinet berths.”
“We waited four years for them (BJP government) to do justice to AP, but they betrayed the people of the State. How can we be sure that they will not do it again?” he said. Now, the whole nation knows about the injustice done to AP by the NDA government, he said. On the party’s future course of action, Naidu said that the party would continue to take up the matter strongly at all possible platforms.
Contesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark in the Lok Sabha that special status cannot be extended to the State “as the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FCC) does not allow it”, Naidu claimed, “The FFC says it does not have any role in it... don’t drag us into it. It is the government which has to take a call.”
He also attacked Union minister Arun Jaitley for “denying SCS to AP and then extending the same to northeastern States”.Naidu said that it was “unwise” on Modi’s part to compare his “able leadership with tainted politicians” during a discussion on the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha. He expressed anguish over PM describing the State’s demand for SCS as party’s fight with YSRC in the State.
The Chief Minister said the PM should not have talked about petty things in his speech in the Lok Sabha. The Prime Minister, in his reply, had said that when the TDP decided to pull out of the NDA government, he spoke to Naidu and told him that he was falling in the trap of his rival YSR Congress. “He said you are falling in the trap of YSR Congress. I told him as far as I am doing right things, nothing can happen to me and my party. I also asked him how can he compare me with tainted people. YSRC leader (Jagan) is going to court every week. Such statements are not expected from a prime minister,” Naidu said.
‘Naveen an old friend’
On the BJD staging a walkout from Parliament during the debate on the no-confidence motion, exposing chinks in Opposition unity, Naidu said, “He (BJD chief Naveen Patnaik) is an old friend... They will be taken on board.” The TDP chief had in May vowed to unite regional parties to take on the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections and had said that his party would play a pivotal role at the Centre.
I am senior to PM: Naidu
On the Prime Minister terming Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao more mature than Naidu, the Chief Minister said, “I am senior to the Prime Minister himself. How can he say that? I became chief minister in 1995 while Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001.” He alleged that neither Modi nor Home Minister Rajnath Singh tried to find a solution to the problems between AP and Telangana. Referring to Modi’s remark that the “Congress killed the mother and saved the child. Had I have been there, I would have saved the mother too”, he said, “We have waited for years for him to do so. We’re still asking him to save the mother,” Naidu said.
