While Opposition party members got together on a stage in Guntur and demanded that the NDA regime grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi went one step ahead. He confidently said that they will throw out the NDA regime from power at the Centre in 2019 general election and also promised to give the SCS to Andhra Pradesh.
At a rally in Guntur on Sunday, Rahul Gandhi vowed to make the SCS a national issue by including leaders from the non-NDA parties. Among those who were present on the dais were Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, DMK's T.K.S. Elangovan and CPI's S. Sudhakar Reddy.
In fact, with him were Akhilesh Yadav, Sharad Yadav, DMK leader TKS Elangovan and S Sudhakar Reddy. The special category status is still a hot topic in Andhra Pradesh, though NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya has made it amply clear that there is no such possibility.
While nothing might come out of all these public meetings where all kinds of impossible promises are being made, it remains a fact that the SCS has become quite the emotional yoke for Andhra Pradesh. And so, the remarks made by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu also seem 'emotionally' valid. On the second day of Navanirmana Deeksha, a week-long programme to bring awareness to people agitated against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, Naidu compared the bifurcation of the state to Draupadi and the famous 'draupadi cheer haran' story. He urged people to think of the injustice meted out to the people of Andhra Pradesh.
Naidu pressed upon the audience that Andhra Pradesh did not want to be a separate state and while that happened inadvertently because the 29th state of Telangana was formed, the residual state of AP got the wrong end of the stick. This is the first time that he is being so vocal about the “injustice” meted out to the residual state, probably keeping the 2019 elections in mind.
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, after his first visit to the state of Telangana after 2014, was probably enthused by the crowds at Sangareddy earlier this week. Not only is he hopeful of a comeback of the Congress at the national level, he also thinks he has chances in Andhra Pradesh, considering he has promised an SCS to Andhra Pradesh if they come to power.
Though the Congress party is to blame for the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, the BJP and other parties merely stood and watched is also a fact. It was none other than former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who promised in parliament a special status for AP. Naidu to be on the safe side, had asked for 15 years. But, none of them has materialised.
But both Naidu and the people of Andhra Pradesh seem to have come to terms over the lack of Special Status and are in 'let-us-get-to-work' mode, which is being skewed every now and then by the Opposition, including the YSR Congress Party, Power Star Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena and now the Congress which is non-existent in AP. There is an absence of Congress representatives in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. Party's state president N. Raghuveera Reddy, who is probably the only worthwhile Congress member in the state, said that Naidu had surrendered the state's interests to the Centre.
In fact, the Congress leaders invited the YSR Congress and the Jana Sena to join the public meeting on Special Category Status held in Guntur on June 4 but both the parties did not respond, though Pawan Kalyan thanked the Congress party for the invitation. In fact the YSRCP has taken umbrage to some of the comments made by Rahul Gandhi.
There is really no end to the argument about the special category status and the fact that Naidu and AP have settled down for a special package. Just who will decide if the package is better than status is also not known. After all Naidu is a member of the NDA which has refused his residual state the SCS. Naidu has apparently convinced himself and his people that the special economic package is much better or equal to the SSC.
