Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who was supposedly looking for excuses to keep away from the Niti Aayog governing council meeting held in New Delhi on Sunday, finally made it to the meeting.
According to reports from New Delhi, Naidu managed to survive the embarrassing moments of meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, thanks to the support extended by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Karnataka chief minister H D Kumara Swamy. Naidu spent most of the time in their company.
Initially, Naidu tried to avoid shaking hands with Modi. He straightway went to his seat bypassing the Prime Minister.
Since Andhra Pradesh is on the top in the alphabetical order, Naidu got the first chance to speak and he took 20 minutes to complete his speech.
Though home minister Rajnath Singh obstructed him after 7 minutes, Naidu continued his speech stating that being the new state, he needed more time to put forth the issues pertaining to the state.
While explaining the injustice meted out to Andhra Pradesh on account of bifurcation, Naidu refrained from making any strong comments against the Centre.
He, however, demanded that the Centre grant special category status to AP and all the benefits ought to be given under AP Reorganisation Act.
After the meeting, Naidu had a separate meeting with Mamata, Pinaryi and Kumara Swamy and Modi himself came to them and shook hands with them.
An embarrassing Naidu had no option but to shake hands with PM and exchanged pleasantries.
