Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh back to haunt NDA

The Special Category Status (SCS) to Andhra Pradesh has turned out to be an embarrassment for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments at the Centre and Andhra Pradesh. The demand for it stares at both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu before the grand foundation-laying ceremony for the new capital, Amaravathi. The demand was made in Rajya Sabha, while adopting the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill 2014, on 20 February, 2014. The BJP’s most powerful ministers in the Narendra Modi Cabinet – Arun Jaitley and M Venkaiah Naidu –  had raised this issue, along with Congress members from Andhra Pradesh, on the floor of the Upper House, forcing the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to concede this demand and announce SCS to the survivor state. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi revived it on 17 October in a letter to PM Modi. In his letter, Gandhi recalled that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had incorporated a comprehensive development package for the state in the Act itself. [caption id=“attachment_2386186” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] PM Modi and AP CM Chandrababu Naidu. Image courtesy: PTI[/caption] “Over one year has elapsed since the NDA government has come to power, but many of the commitments made to the state - including Special Category Status - remain unfulfilled. I have been to Andhra Pradesh twice over the last year. Everywhere I went, I could sense the severe disappointment and pain the people were in due to the Centre’s failure to honour its commitments,” the letter said. Ironically, Chandrababu Naidu and Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, who have been batting for the SCS for several months, slowly, yet steadily, tapered down the demand saying that was not the panacea to all the problems of the state. Naidu has never lost an opportunity to project the loss suffered and problems inherited by the state owing to bifurcation. As latest as on Tuesday, Naidu said that a lot of injustice was meted out to Andhra Pradesh. “I am not demanding that Telangana and AP must be merged again. But I am insisting on the special package and incentives for the economic growth and development of the state.” Naidu, who has been asserting that special category alone would not solve all the problems, however, ensured that he is politically correct by observing that the SCS would always be beneficial to the state. Venkaiah Naidu, who has been dropping hints that the Centre may not be fully compensating the expenditure incurred by Andhra Pradesh in its humongous plans for building a world-class capital city, remains non-committal on the SCS. He said a week ago that the NITI Ayog was examining the demand for the SCS to Andhra Pradesh. It was with this demand that YS Jaganmohan Reddy, Leader of the Opposition in the AP Assembly and president of the YSR Congress, staged a daylong dharna on 11 August at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and later sat on an indefinite hunger strike on 7 October that was foiled a week later. Jagan demanded that the state would benefit a great deal economically if SCS was accorded. He had addressed meetings of university students in different parts of the state, before the launch of hunger strike. Jagan, who refused to attend the foundation laying ceremony to Amaravathi by the Prime Minister, however, sought an appointment on 22 October either at Gannavaram airport or Tirupati from the latter to submit a memorandum on the SCS issue. Union Minister for Rural Development in the UPA Government Jairam Ramesh, who was also instrumental in drafting the AP Reorganisation Bill, said that the NDA Government had done away with the concept of Special Category Status, causing a huge loss to the 11 states which were already enjoying it. What does Special Category Status mean to States? The SCS automatically makes a state eligible to get 90 per cent as grant and 10 per cent as loan for all Central schemes. If a state doesn’t have that special category status, it gets 70 per cent towards loan and 30 per cent towards grant. According to Ramesh, Andhra Pradesh would have benefitted to an extent of at least Rs 4,000 crore annually if the SCS was granted. He recalled that Venkaiah Naidu had said (before the elections) in the Rajya Sabha that the NDA, which was poised to come to power, would extend the SCS to Andhra Pradesh to 10 years, while Dr Manmohan Singh had announced it for just five years. “It is a complete betrayal of the commitment. The Congress is officially boycotting the foundation laying ceremony as the government has failed to implement its commitments made in the AP Reorganisation Act. And the Congress believes that land pooling done for the capital is nothing but land fooling,” he said. State secretary of the Communist Party of India K Ramakrishna undertook a tour of the state to voice the party’s resentment over not giving the special status. The CPI-M too joined the chorus.