MP Galla Jayadev’s terrific speech in Parliament

It’s been so long since some one gave a terrific speech in parliament on the issues of AP people. Yesterday, TDP MP Galla Jayadev put the arguments and concerns of Telugu people so eloquently yet cogently and that speech is attracting great appreciation from all the quarters. He spared no party, be it Congress, YSRCP or BJP. He left no bifurcation issue untouched in his speech. He spoke with full “data” instead of giving rhetoric. His full speech as below:

Sir, I do understand about trust an essential requirement for any partnership to continue. I also think that I can safely say that India has not seen her last days of coalition governments. What message do you want to send to your allies and potential allies mr. prime minister. Your allies are feeling neglected, betrayed and humiliated as are the five core people of Andhra Pradesh. We demand an explanation. In the budget there’s no mention of Amaravati, Polavaram, Railway zone, deficit budget, special package, not to mention the other commitments made in the AP Reorganization Act and the assurances made on the floor of the Raja Sabha by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji, without which this bill would not have been passed and therefore should be considered sacrosanct.

Some of your party leaders are trying to convince you that some how your party can grow in Andhra Pradesh by breaking the promises and weakening the Telugu Desham party. Seasoned admirers of the Congress president convinced her as well in 2014 of an ill-advised strategy and paid a very dear price from being the strongest state unit in the country for the Congress, it went to zero out of 25 MPs and zero out of 175 MLAs where it’s likely to stay for a very long time. The Congress thought that, by betraying the people of Andhra Pradesh it would ensure a win in Telangana and the TRS would merge with it. The Congress also had expected, because of a secret deal between them and the YSRCP, they would win in AP and would also support them if not merge. The people of AP are no fools and the Congress was wiped out in both the states and YSRCP devious plans were understood by the people. Please don’t be of the opinion that the BJP will fare any better if it treads the wrong path.

The YSRCP is now again trying to fool the people of AP. They are praising the budget cozying up to the central government, shifting the blame from the central government and the BJP to the AP government and to the TDP. The people of AP are no fools. They know that the YSRCP needs to support whoever is in power in the centre in order to keep their leader out of jail. Today it may be you, tomorrow it may not. And what is the message you will send to the country by supporting the party whose founder and president is the poster boy of corruption in India. If you think that the YSRCP would make a better alliance partner in AP it would be a serious lapse of judgement and morality. There’s a saying sir you can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. And Let me assure you Mr. prime minister, the TDP and the people of Andhra Pradesh are certainly no fools. We demand an explanation.

Our CM has visited Delhi 29 times. He’s met the Prime Minister, finance minister, home minister multiple times and every concerned minister to get the promises and assurances fulfilled. He has submitted report after report. The latest report being here sir, you can see how detailed this report is. This is not the first report. So many reports have been given to every department. It’s a shame. It’s shameful for the government to still say they’re waiting for information or that they’re still examining the situation. Sir, there are 19 items just in the AP reorganisation act alone that are yet to be fulfilled. I’m not going to cover all of them. I’m only going to focus on five main items from that because of the paucity of time. But there are 19 items just in the reorganization act alone. These include, I won’t go into detail, but let me read them out. Special category state, bridging the resource gap, Polavaram project, formation of a railway zone, financial assistance to Amaravathi, establishment of Green field crude refinery and petro chemical complex, Institutes of national importance, formation of Dugarajapatnam port at Nellore, increase of seats in AP state assembly, anomalies in tax matters, steel plant in Cuddapah district , establishment of Vizag Chennai industrial corridor, Vishakhapatnam and Vijayawada Metro rapid rail and road connectivity to Amaravati, development assistant to backward districts, payment of power dues by Discom, appointment of schedule nine institutions, appointment of schedule ten institutions and the formation of the Greyhound training center. Just in the AP reorganisation act alone sir, not to mention other assurances made to us sir. Where’s the budget for fulfilling your promises and assurances? Where is it in the budget? how do you plan to do it?

Coming to the special package, I wish to remind the honorable finance minister, what he had said on 7 September 2016 while announcing the special financial package to the state of AP sir. He said the government of India will support AP to the hilt. Sir that was in September 2016. Nothing has been done since then . The government cannot take our patience for granted. Not allocating and not even mentioning about the special financial package to AP in this budget is injustice and is deceiving the people of Andhra Pradesh. Secondly, when the finance minister came to Amaravathi to lay the foundation stone for administrative city , the CM of AP requested for exemption of capital gains tax till the first sale of the developed land in the Capital Region. Sir, this falls in my parliamentary constituency. The F-M assured that he would consider this request sympathetically but the exemption has been given only for two years. So I request that it should be given for that until the first sale is made which we’ve made this request over and over again. But we want a confirmation sir . Thirdly, the house is aware that AP has been given the financial package due to immense loss that it has suffered after bifurcation. The house is also very well aware that the financial packages with different nomenclatures were announced to various states and regions earlier and we also know the fate of those announcements sir. So looking at the past experience the people of AP are very apprehensive that this financial package may also meet the same fate hence there have been numerous demands from various quarters and also from our CM for giving legislative backing to the entire financial package announced on September 6, 2016 and also to implement the package in a fixed time frame in view of the above. I demand the Finance Minister through this house to immediately released a financial package announced and also give legislative backing to the special financial package to legitimize the announcements made by the Finance Minister. I’m sure he would reply to this when he replies to the debate sir.

Coming to assurances given during bifurcation, the government of India promised to give equal amount that the special category status would get as a special package. So I don’t want to go into the special category status issue right now. Secondly, the PM (the then Prime minister) also had assured on the floor of Rajya Sabha , special development package would be given to seven backward districts of Rayalseema and north coastal Andhra and it will be on the lines of the Koraput, Kalahandi special plan in Odisha and the Bundelkhand special package in Madhya Pradesh and UP. But so far, the government of India has given just 1050 crores or 50 crores per district every year for three years, while the package given to KBK and Bundelkhand is 6000 crores, only 1050 crores is given to AP and even this 50 crores is stopping after this year sir. We want that package sir, not a pittance to our backward districts sir.

Coming to Polavaram, the government of AP has submitted a revised proposal of 54,000 crores as for the 2014-15 estimates. Out of this nearly 30 thousand crores are meant for compensation to be paid for land acquisition and R&R. So i only request the FM and PM to approve the revised estimates of Polavaram at the earliest sir. Sir, coming to the railway zone and also the Vizag and Vijayawada Metro, the Honorable Finance Ministry has announced allocation of 17,000 crore for the Bangalore Metro and approved 51,000 crores for the Mumbai suburban railway network but there’s no mention about the Metro in Vishakhapatnam or in Vijayawada. It is obvious that the FM’s announcement for Bangalore is because there’s assembly elections in karnataka and not in AP. How is it justified sir? does it not mean that you’re deviating from your own path of talking only a “Vikas” and there would not be any politics on developmental issues. Yesterday, the Honourable railway minister made a statement in the other house, in the Rajya Sabha, on the railway zone. He said and I quote – “changing the zone and the contours of any zone involves consultations with a lot of other states. After we finished the consultation with all the states, we’ll find out a viable method by which there is no dispute. This should have been done by now sir. Why are we hearing this up four years later? Why we still hearing this sir? You know this is not something that I expect from a senior leader like Mr.Piyush Goyal sir. This should have been done. This statement by the Honorable railway minister is understood by the people of AP as delaying tactics as a railway zone is part of the AP reorganization Act which this government is supposed to implement.

Sir, coming to our new capital of Amaravathi, section 94( 3) of the AP reorganization Act says the central government shall provide special financial support for the creation of essential facilities in the new capital of the successor state of Andhra Pradesh including Raj Bhavan, High Court, Government Secretariat, Legislative Assembly, Legislative Council and such other essential infrastructure. It is the “central government shall provide” Sir, not “may provide” but “shall provide”. Provisional estimates indicate requirement of 1.2 lakh crores for the construction of the new capital of Amaravathi but just for the essential infrastructure including the Raj Bhavan, Secretariat, High Court, Legislative Assembly, and Council, the land development is estimated to cost around 42,935 crores over the next five years. But in the last three years, you provided 500 crores in 2014-15, 550 crores in 2015-16, 450 crores in 2016-17. Nothing more has been given. 1000 crores of this has been given for specific projects in Vijayawada and Guntur underground drainage, not even for the capital city. So I request the finance minister to release at least 10,000 crores annually so that in the next four to five years, the 42,935 crores can be given to construct our Raj bhavan, Secretariat, High Court, assembly and the infrastructure around that. The Finance Minister made a statement in Raja Sabha and said that he has directed the expenditure secretary to sit with officials from AP and finalize about the deficit budget. Officials from AP have reached today and would be discussing with the expenditures secretary and others. So I will speak about this only after the out come of those meetings. But that is definitely an area of concern to us sir.

Sir, coming to the allocation to various institutions mandated to be set up in AP as per the AP reorganisation act, they are pittance sir in this budget. With such paltry allocations every year, it would take 10 to 30 years for these institutions to become a reality. Just to give an example of this, the announced setting up of AIIMS in Amaravathi in our new capital, which also happens to be my parliamentary constituency sir, the estimated cost is 1618 crores. But so far not even a single penny has been allocated this year. Some money given to AIIMS in various states , but there’s no specific mention about AIIMS in AP sir. May be again because elections are not coming up in AP. So, in the same way I have figures for every institution and allocations to other such as the Vizag steel plant, the Dredging Corporation of India, the Hindustan shipyard, the Vizag Port Trust where allocations are miniscule. The overall allocations made to AP comes to 1814 crores and it is no exaggeration when I say that the telugu movie BAHUBALI’ collections are more than the funds allocated to our states.

If the people of AP gave zero seats to the Congress for passing the AP reorganization Act, imagine what they would think about the BJP for not even fulfilling the minimum requirements contained in this act. We demand an explanation, failing which we have no option than to consider you are acting in bad faith . Let me repeat, we will have no option than to consider you acting in bad faith and will certainly have to reconsider why are we in this relationship. I’m sure you will understand, as will your other allies and potential allies within this very critical election year. This is your last chance to fulfill your promises and assurances and to maintain the Alliance Dharma which we have maintained till now very patiently. It gives us no joy to be in this position and to deliver this message to a friend in an ally but you have given us no other option and no other choice. It’s now or never . We still have belief and trust in the finance minister and prime minister but we demand a comprehensive explanation and let me remind you again, the people of AP are no fools.