Everybody knows how Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had taken a U-turn on special category status demand.
When he was in the NDA, he blindly accepted the special financial package and agreed with the contention of the NDA government that the special category status could not be given as the 14th finance commission had rejected such a possibility.
When YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy pointed out in the state assembly that the finance commission had nowhere mentioned about special category status, Naidu refused to even refer to the commission report and blindly supported the Centre. He even said SCS was not a sanjeevani to provide solution to every problem.
However, after TDP parted ways with the BJP, Naidu also started talking on the lines of Jagan and said the finance commission had nowhere mentioned about the special category status and that the Centre had cheated him.
But on Thursday, Naidu once again submitted a representation to the 15th finance commission asking for special category status to AP.
“This is silly. When the finance commission has nothing do with the status, why should Naidu ask the same commission again?” asked YSRC MLA and public accounts committee chairman Buggana Rajendernath.
“When Jagan said that the SCS was not within the purview of the Finance Commission and only an executive order or a cabinet decision can lead to the SCS, the TDP leadership did not agree and made numerous allegations. Now the ruling party, without taking any opposition party into confidence had given a memorandum on its own seeking SCS, which is ironic,” he said.
The YSRC leaders too had met the members of the 15th Finance Commission and gave a representation seeking adequate and additional funds for the fledgling state.
Buggana said Naidu has been painting a rosy picture of the state economy by telling inflated growth figures which is adversely affecting the state.
“The agriculture and industrial data which he has been giving out have no proper source and are far from reality,” he said.