Andhra Pradesh endowments minister P Manikyala Rao is a member of the Chandrababu Naidu cabinet. Therefore, he is bound by the collective responsibility of the council of ministers. Whatever he says, it is construed as the opinion of the entire cabinet.
But on Friday, Manikyala Rao, who represents Bharatiya Janata Party, spoke entirely in contrary to the views expressed by the rest of the cabinet colleagues with regard to the injustice meted out to Andhra Pradesh in the union budget.
He not only appreciated the Central budget, but also found fault with the chief minister and other cabinet ministers for making allegations against the Narendra Modi government.
“The Central budget is extraordinary. It has done justice to all sections of people. There is no truth in the allegations that it has done injustice to Andhra Pradesh.
The Centre does not discriminate between other states and Andhra Pradesh, but has done justice to all.
Andhra Pradesh will get all the funds it is due to get, like any other state. In fact, in some areas, it will get more funds,” Manikyala Rao said.
Reacting to the charge that the Centre has ignored construction of capital city Amaravati, the endowments minister said the main reason for not releasing funds was that there is no detailed project report for Amaravati capital.
“Let the state submit the DPR to the Centre and then see whether the Centre releases funds to the state or not,” he said.
Manikyala Rao is the only BJP leader who shot back at the TDP leaders in the last 24 hours.
“So far, there is no official comment from our alliance partner TDP on the budget. Whatever comments that have been made so far are the individual opinions of some TDP leaders and not that of the entire party,” he observed.
