The tall claims being made by Telugu Desam Party president and AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu that he would go all out to bring pressure on the Centre to secure special status to Andhra Pradesh have fallen flat.
The Centre on Friday categorically declared that there was no plan, whatsoever, to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
Union Deputy Minister for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh, in a question raised by Andhra MPs Kotha Prabhakar Reddy and Maganti Babu, gave a written statement stating that the Centre had rejected the demand for special status to AP.
The minister gave five reasons why special status cannot be given to AP.
As of now, 11 States -- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mijoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttharakhand were given special status.
“After the formation of 14th finance commission, there is no provision for giving special status to any State,” he said.
Now, it is pretty evident that Chandrababu Naidu and his friend in the Centre M Venkaiah Naidu have been hoodwinking people on special status to Andhra Pradesh.
The Centre, however, tried to provide an eyewash saying that it would help both Telangana and AP by devolving more funds as per the 14th finance commission recommendations.
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