Chandrababu’s Rosy Picture of AP Cost SCS: Undavalli

Former MP Undavalli Arun Kumar said that it was the AP Leader of Opposition, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, who has been waging a relentless battle for Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh right from the time of the bifurcation of undivided Andhra Pradesh. Rattled by the overhwleming response that the YSRCP chief has been receiving, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has resorted to all kinds of gimmicks faking advocacy of SCS to AP.

The farce enacted in the Lok Sabha at the time of bifurcation needs to be taken up for discussion in the winter session, he said. Undavalli also released a letter he had written to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu asking his affidavit to the Supreme Court to be submitted on behalf of the state government. Over the last four years, Chandrababu had completely brushed aside the significance of SCS as worthless and even asserted that it was a panacea for the state. However, in view of the upcoming elections, the AP CM is now claiming credit for the SCS struggle which he is propogating on his select media outlets. Chandrababu Naidu has asked the people of the state to vote his party to power and to give them 25 MP seats promising SCS to AP.

Does he forget when he could not press for SCS as an ally in the NDA, how can he hope to enlist BJP's support when it is in the opposition. This commonsensical logic seems to elude him, he said.

On the one hand, Andhra Pradesh is currently a resource starved state as Chandrababu himself admits. On the other, he paints a rosy picture of the state of affairs in AP. He claimed that AP would surge ahead of Gujarat and it had highest GDP in the country. How could be even expect the Centre to consider Special Category Status when he made such absurd claims, Arun Kumar questioned.