Everybody in Andhra Pradesh knows special category status for the state is a closed chapter. Telugu Desam Party led by N Chandrababu Naidu, which came out of the National Democratic Alliance on this demand to gain political mileage in the 2019 elections, has stopped talking about it as it faced a humiliating defeat.
YSR Congress party led by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, which raised a lot of hue and cry over the special category status and came to power riding on the demand, has conveniently ignored the same and is now trying to get into the good books of the NDA government which dumped the demand.
Only for the sake of record, Jagan mentions the issue in his memorandum to the BJP bosses, whenever he goes to New Delhi, knowing fully well that they would dump the demand in the dust bin. The BJP will anyway not talk about it and other parties are not in a position to even raise their voice.
In fact, the people of Andhra have completely forgotten the special category status issue now and their focus now is only on whether the capital of the state would remain at Amaravati or would be split into three, as proposed by Jagan.
Yet, some people have once again started raking up the demand for special category status.
Andhra Intellectuals Forum convenor Chalasani Srinivas, who shot into limelight with his fight against bifurcation of combined Andhra Pradesh and later founded Pratyeka Hoda Sadhana Samithi, is now back in action.
Along with some not-so-known leaders, Srinivas announced revival of the agitation of special category status and other issues mentioned in AP Bifurcation Act in January, once the Covid-19 vaccination starts.
He said the movement had to be withdrawn only because of the pandemic and now that the situation was returning to normal, it was time to restart the fight for special category status.
“We shall take the movement strongly into the people. We shall soon organise a massive public meeting at Tirupati shortly,” he said.
Sources said there is definitely a hidden agenda behind Chalasani’s plan to revive the movement for special category status. Obviously, it is aimed at creating troubles for the Jagan Mohan Reddy government which dumped the demand.
Naturally, there would be some talk among the people if the demand for special category status is raised as frequently as possible.
The announcement that the public meeting would be held in Tirupati itself shows that there is a political agenda behind this plan.
And it is easy to guess who will gain benefit from cornering the Jagan government on this demand. So, there is nothing surprising to assume that the same forces could be behind Chalasani!