It’s been over a week after Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced special development package for Andhra Pradesh dashing hopes of Seemandhra people on special status, by convening a late night press conference in New Delhi. His announcement assumed no significance with the special package has nothing special but smartly packaged. He, however, smartly skipped pushing the onus on Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu when asked about the railway zone for AP.
If there is severe opposition from the political parties, the government would test the pulse of people by giving leaks to the media. The signal of the Central government to shift the railway zone to Vijayawada from Visakhapatnam is also the similar one. And the silence from the TDP leaders along with the AP Ministers also part of the strategy.
But the moment news spread that the Centre is mulling to shift the railway zone, protests erupted in North Andhra region. The common public too joined when TDP MP Avanthi Srinivas launched deeksha against the move in Vizag. Even with the public associations up in arms against the decision in the city, there were reports in the media that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu too opposed the proposal probably to avoid public anger.
There is no statement on railway zone so far from Suresh Prabhu. May be the Centre might have thought that it is not the right time to speak on the issue. According to a few sources, the Odisha government is learnt to have linked the railway zone issue with Polavaram project. The Odissa government is mounting pressure on the Centre to drop the idea of making Visakhapatnam railway zone headquarters, if the Centre has to complete the Polavaram irrigation project without any hurdles.
If Visakha is made headquarters of railway zone, East Coast Railway, Bhubaneswar as Centre would have to lose major chunk of revenue. Ever since the proposal was made, the Odisha government has been opposing it. The TDP leaders had hidden themselves by maintaining silence when the opposition parties protested against it. The similar game of hide and seek was played by the TDP on special status Later, it had accepted the special package. The TDP is adopting the same strategy on railway zone too. Will these games save the TDP in the next elections in 2019?
