Union minister for urban development M Venkaiah Naidu appears to be more embarrassed than Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu with regard to poor allocation of funds in the Central budget for AP.
It is an open secret that it was Venkaiah Naidu who had brought Chandrababu into the BJP fold before the last elections to take on YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.
While Naidu’s all attempts to stall the bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh failed, Venkaiah made a promise to Naidu that he would ensure more funds to AP once the Modi government came to power. And that would help their community to make big money in the next five years.
However, a shrewd politician that he is, Modi started ignoring Chandrababu and sidelined Venkaiah with a view to developing BJP in AP.
The Modi government completely ignored the promises made for development of AP while passing the AP Reorganisation Act. The fact that the Centre had allocated just Rs 100 crore to Polavaram project, instead of declaring it as a national project, itself is an indication to Modi’s lack of interest in both Naidus.
Now, Venkaiah is saying Chandrababu should show patience and get the benefits from the Centre through negotiations. He admitted that the Centre had ignored financing certain activities like building a new capital city and completion of Polavaram project.
