The bifurcation of combined Andhra Pradesh is now a closed chapter. In fact, people of Andhra Pradesh who had initially fought against the bifurcation, are now reconciled to the fact that it was in fact for their good, as the governments have at least got the opportunity to develop Seemandhra, rather than focussing only on Hyderabad.
There are still some voices of politicians over the manner in which the state was divided, which resulted in a loss to residuary AP. That is why people are more worried about special category status to AP. They are now relieved of getting rid of nagging Telangana leaders.
But former chief minister Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy, who had opposed the bifurcation of combined AP tooth and nail till the eleventh hour, still believes that the bifurcation should not have happened.
While people of Telangana and Andhra are able to witness more development than in the past, Kiran feels the state would have been prosperous, had it remained united.
In an interview to a Telugu television channel, Kiran said he said he had opposed the bifurcation as he felt that it would harm the interests of both the states.
Now, the divided states were losing out heavily because they had now become smaller. Had the state been united, it could have made more progress. That was the reason why the Centre was not showing any interest in the two Telugu states as they were now divided.
Asked about the performance of the Telugu Desam Party and Telangana Rashtra Samithi governments in AP and Telangana respectively, Kiran said the governance in both the states was very bad. The people would teach a fitting lesson to both the parties in the next elections.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not focusing on AP and Telangana only because he has no stakes in both the states.
He said that only Congress can do justice to Andhra Pradesh and only when Rahul Gandhi becomes the Prime Minister, it would get special category status.
The former chief minister claimed credit for the ongoing Polavaram project on Godavari river.
“It was because of my fight and efforts that the project got the national status. Even the issue of special status came to the limelight only because of me,” he said.