Within hours of the Union home ministry circulating the agenda of the meeting of the three-member committee to discuss the bifurcation issues concerning the two Telugu states, the euphoria of the YSR Congress party and the Andhra Pradesh government over the special category status evaporated.
The special category status and the revenue deficit of Andhra Pradesh were part of the nine-point agenda circulated among the two Telugu states on Saturday morning.
This led to the talk that the Central government is positively responding to the long-pending demand of the special category status to AP.
But by evening, the two issues pertaining to Andhra Pradesh were removed from the agenda and a fresh note was circulated to the Telugu states, leading to huge disappointment among the YSRC.
BJP Rajya Sabha member G V L Narasimha Rao released a video byte stating that the special category issue and revenue deficit issue cannot be part of the agenda, as the meeting was related to the inter-state issues; and while these two issues pertained to only AP.
However, YSRC suspected that there was a foul play in the removal of the two items from the agenda. YSRC spokesman and MLA Ambati Rambabu issued a statement saying the special category issue was removed after the two MPs – Sujana Chowdary and C M Ramesh, who defected to BJP from TDP, brought pressure on the home ministry.
He also wondered why GVL was so hurriedly issued a statement on the removal of the two issues from the agenda, at a time when the Centre was favourably considering them.
Rambabu said the fact that TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu had not issued a statement welcoming the inclusion of special category status issue in the agenda itself showed that he was not happy with the Centre’s decision.
“He might have definitely influenced his stooges Sujana Chowdary and C M Ramesh to bring pressure on the home ministry to remove the items from the agenda, as it would fetch huge mileage to YSRC and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy,” he said.
