Beleagured chief minister Chandrababu Naidu received very disheartening message that centre could not give special status, but the state would receive a special care.
Centre conveyed this stern message to the TDP and BJP parliament members through finance minister Arun Jatley when the former met him Tuesday to brief him about the political situation which is turning volatile after the self-immolation of Congress worker Muni Koti and the opposition called state bandh.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu swung into action immediately and said to have spoken to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over phone and asked him to speed up the process of announcing at least these incentives which centre promising now to pacify the angry people of the state.
Jaitely told the delegation in no uncertain terms that the practice of according special status had been done away with following the 14 finance commisison recommendations.The MPs got same response from union home minister Rajnath Singh as well when they met him separately.
Jaitley and Rajnath Singh, however, promised that Andhra Pradesh would receive special care in the form a financial package which would be equivalent to the special category status in terms of benefits.
After his meeting with TDP-BJP MPs, Jaitley announced that the package would be better than the so called special status which was non-existent.”Given the problems the state facing, AP needs special care for few years. I can assure that State will get more than what they are expecting from the Centre in the form of special status,” he said and added that the centre would be announcing the package for the AP “very soon”.
JC Diwakar Reddy, TDP MP from Anantauram, said, ” It is clear, the centre will not accord special status to AP because of technical reasons. We are convinced that it will announce a package, which will offer all benefits to the State equivalent to that of special status.” YS Chowdary,union minister for science and technology, and BJP MP K Haribabu said they had got assurance from both Jaitley and Rajnath that the Centre would soon announce “incentives” for the State which would be equal to special status.
