Former union Minister and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh says the special category state (SCS) status to Andhra Pradesh is the right of the people. He was critical of BJP’s stand that the SCS was not incorporated in the Andhra Pradesh reorganization Act-2014 and opined that it was only an alibi to postpone the issue. ‘How did a party which asked for ten year- long special status for Andhra Pradesh, forget that the issue had not been incorporated in the bill, at the time of debate?” he asked.
But, unfortunately, he said, the centre was sending across confusing signals on the very important aspect of the future development of the state. Jairam, who played key role in the drafting of the bifurcation bill, has been the strong advocate of SCS. Now he alleged that,” the BJP leadership, including Union Ministers Arun Jaitley and M. Venkaiah Naidu, are misleading people, claiming that the issue was not incorporated in the AP Reorganisation Act. Were you (two Union Ministers who pressed for the extension of SCS for 10 years ) not aware of the fact that the provision was not incorporated in the Bill at the time of its passage”, Jairam asked.
He was commenting on the status SCS when he attended a program at Raj Ghat to pay homage to ” Matti Satyagraham” launched by Andhra Pradesh Congress party. Jairam who got elected to Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh, expressed to solidarity to the program and congratulated the APCC president N. Raghuveera Reddy, MP K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao and MLC C Ramachandraiah for taking up the novel program in Gandhian style. Soil satyagraham’,is a program of collection of soil by the Congress grassroots level workers to be sent to the Prime Minister to register their protest to PMs offer of Delhi soil and Yamuna water to the state which crying for SCS.
APCC chief Raghuveera Reddy, who was the author of the ‘Matti Satyagraham’, said that the struggle would continue till Andhra Pradesh was accorded Special Category Status as fought and assured several BJP Parliament members, who are now ministers in union council of ministers.
