Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is crying foul over the complete neglect of the state in the Union budget.
There was not a single reference to AP in the budget speech read out by Union minister Piyush Goel in Lok Sabha on Friday.
Interacting with party functionaries through teleconference on Saturday, Naidu alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party had betrayed Andhra Pradesh even in the last budget.
“The Central budget has given no relief to the poor, nor did the middle class get any benefit. The EBC income limit was Rs.8 lakh and the income-tax ceiling was raised to Rs 5 lakh. There are many such contradictions even in the IT rebate,” he said.
The States are advised to get NREGA loans although the Centre has yet to pay huge amounts as NREGA arrears. The budget also did not address the unemployment problem, he said.
Naidu claimed that his government had provided employment to 14 lakh in the State and in Kia alone, thousands got jobs.
“We brought automobile, IT and electronic industries to the State and the MSME Parks are generating jobs on a large scale,” he pointed out.
Naidu s observed that Friday was a historic day in State Assembly as almost all MLAs attended the Session in black shirts to protest against the injustice meted out to AP by the Centre. He said never before did the legislators attend Assembly wearing black shirts.
The TDP MPs also demonstrated in Delhi wearing black shirts; the state-wide Joint Action Committee (JAC) bandh was a success and all these were aimed to strongly protest the Centre’s attitude, he stated.
“We should not be complacent and tolerate the injustice done to the State. I thank all those who took part in the protests,” he said.