New Delhi: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said people of Andhra Pradesh were angry with its leadership and were looking for a change, the state chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu hit back, saying the whole country wants a change at the Centre.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief said Thursday that an anti-NDA wind was sweeping the country, the result of which would be seen in this year’s general elections.
A day earlier, Modi – in his first direct attack on the TDP leader since the latter pulled out of his government at the Centre in March 2018 – alleged the state’s leadership of indulging in scams and diverting from their core ideology. “Can we expect them to be committed to people?” he reportedly asked.
The prime minister, during a video-conference with BJP workers on Wednesday, further accused the TDP government and Naidu of not fulfilling the promise to accord special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
While he didn’t specifically name Naidu, according to an IANS report, Modi said the TDP was engaged in forging an alliance outside the state, knowing they were headed for a defeat in the coming elections. Stating that people have not forgotten the manner in which Congress divided the state, Modi further said that by joining hands with Congress, those in power in the state had rubbed salt into the wounds of the people.
“What happened to this grand alliance in Telangana? They were totally rejected by the people and same is going to happen in Andhra Pradesh,” PM Modi further said, referring to the defeat of Congress-led alliance in the last month’s assembly elections.
According to The News Minute, Modi also went on to accuse the state’s leaders of corruption, asking where the close to Rs 20,000 crore – release to the state as resource gap and revenue deficit funding – had gone. He also said that Rs 1,000 crore was released for backward districts but the state government was not able to provide timely utilisation certificate.
Also read: Explainer: TDP’s Anger Against the Narendra Modi Govt and What It Means for BJP
Modi also pinpointed the Polavaram irrigation project, saying that while Rs 7,000 crore had so far been released for it, “If CAG reports are to be believed, they also turned out to be inefficient in executing the work”.
Chandrababu Naidu’s response
The Andhra Pradesh chief, however, known for his scathing attacks against Modi, did not take these allegations sitting down. Addressing a public meeting at Guntur, he said the prime minister had gone back on all the commitments made to Andhra Pradesh after its bifurcation and he was attacking him because the TDP chief was demanding the Centre fulfil its promises.
On Modi’s slamming of TDP forging an alliance with Congress, the state chief minister said the prime minister was only looking to divert attention from the Centre’s failure to accord special category status to Andhra Pradesh and provide assistance for developing the new state capital.
Further, on the central fund allocation for the Polavaram project, Naidu said: “The state has to get another Rs 74,000 crore.”
After recently terming the prime minister a “hollow man” who had “done nothing” for India, Naidu last Sunday also dubbed Modi a “blackmailer” who “threatens” everybody to make them fall in line.
Relations between the two leaders have been strained more so since the TDP, claiming the state’s demands were being ignored, pulled out of the NDA government at the Centre in March 2018.
(With agency inputs)