It is now clear that Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has made up his mind to part ways with the Bharatiya Janata Party, but is only trying to find excuses and buy time to get out of the NDA.
The BJP leadership and the Centre have been making their best efforts to convince Naidu and his MPs that they would fulfil all the promises made in the AP Reorganisation Act one after the other, except the special category status which is ruled out in the given circumstances.
The central leadership of the BJP called Naidu for negotiations on the AP Reorganisation Act and he sent a delegation to discuss with finance minister Arun Jaitely and BJP president Amit Shah to sort out all the issues, but the TDP leadership insisted on the special category status.
However, the talks did not yield any results, as the TDP leaders insisted that the Centre should grant special category status to AP.
“We agreed for a special financial package in the past in lieu of special category status only because the centre said there would be no discrimination between the special category states and others in terms of special industrial incentives.
But recently, the Centre extended exemption of CGST and IGST to the industrial units in the north-east and Himalayan states for another 10 years. We want the same to be extended to Andhra Pradesh as well,” finance minister Y Ramakrishnudu said.
The state also wanted 90 per cent grants for centrally sponsored schemes as is being given to the states with special category status.
So, even if the Centre grants all the benefits to AP, the TDP may not continue with the BJP on the grounds of special category status.
Only thing is that Naidu would drag the controversy as long as it can and after blaming the BJP to the maximum extent, he would call it quits to the NDA.
