The ruling Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh has virtually “managed” the Centre to get a statement from the Centre in Parliament on the implementation of promises made in the AP Reorganisation Act so as to appease the agitated people of the state and also outwit the opposition parties.
However, the statements made by finance minister Arun Jaitely and railway minister Piyush Goel were far from convincing.
As usual, Jaitely tried to give excuses for not releasing funds on technical grounds and only assured to sort out the issues through discussions with officials.
However, there was no mention of several other issues in Jaitely statement, which was just like an eyewash.
Though the TDP MPs initially felt Jaitely statement would douse the flames to some extent, very soon they realised that Jaitely was only diverting the issue.
He did not talk about poor allocations to AP in the budget and also funds to Amaravati and other projects like metro rail or petroleum corridor etc.
As a result, the TDP MPs continued to stall the proceedings even after Jaitely’s statement. They are trying to put up an aggressive posture.
TDP MP Garikapati Mohan Rao said the Centre should fix a deadline before which all the promises were fulfilled.
“Till then, our fight continues,” he said.
