Naidu portrays Modi as betrayer

​Tirupati: In one of his most stinging attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday described him as the betrayer of people's trust for not keeping his promise of helping the state build a capital better than Delhi, according Special Category Status (SCS) and bestowing all benefits the state is eligible under the AP Sate Reorganisation Act 2014. Addressing his first major political meeting after launching his ‘Dharma Poratam’, Naidu said: “Denial of SCS is a clear case of betrayal.     

AP is now forced to revolt against the Centre and take up Dharma Poratam since it did not care for Andhra Pradesh despite repeated requests. I visited Delhi 29 times. I came out of the NDA only after realising that it had betrayed us. I am now ready for any sacrifice to protect the interests of the state."
Naidu, to drive home the point that there was no security to even female children under the BJP dispensation, referred to Kathua incident. 

"There has been a gap between the promises and performance whether it is law and order or extending helping hand for development of states," he said. Naidu chose SV University Grounds as the venue for his public meeting since it was from here that Narendra Modi, ahead of the 2014 general elections, made the promises to the people, including helping build a capital better than Delhi.

Naidu, for a while suspended his address, and played a video clipping of Modi’s addresses in this temple town and two other places in the state, to drive home the point that the kind of betrayer that Modi had turned out in the end.

Though a hail storm blew away the chairs arranged for the audience at the venue in the afternoon, it soon subsided, allaying the apprehensions of the oraganisers that the rain and winds would play spoilsport. A battery of TDP leaders were seated on the dais as Naidu kept pummelling the BJP at the Centre. Naidu, in his long address, covered the entire gamut of how the BJP had let down AP and how it was encouraging parties bereft of values to scuttle the Telugu Desam Party as soon as it began questioning why the BJP was not doing what it was supposed to as per the constitution. 

He hit out at the saffron party for trying to do politics of the type it had done in Tamil Nadu. "The BJP knows it has no roots in AP. That is why it is moving closer to someone who is involved in corruption cases so that the few seats he might win might be of help to it in the end. The BJP is inciting not only the YSRC but also Jana Sena to attack me," he said.He gave a graphic account  of how the state had bled after the division which he said was irrational since assets were allotted to Telangana and debts were transferred to truncated state.  He said that since the people did not want division, it was now the responsibility of the Centre to make good what it had lost.     

“Whom should one turn to if the Centre does not even implement the act made by Parliament," he asked. He advised the Centre not to underestimate the power of the TDP. He recalled formation of United Front by 13 parties in 1990. “I never showed interest in power though I was heading the United Front. Since beginning I was concerned mostly about the interests of the state,” he said. 

In the same breath, Naidu warned Modi that if he does not do justice to the state even now, he should realise that the TDP after winning all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state, would be in a position to decide who should be the next prime minister. "Delhi politics are not new to me," he said and wanted Modi to act with at least a modicum of political sagacity and undo the injustice done to the state.

Naidu recalled how the BJP went back on Special Category Status and how it had promised special package but how they had turned it into a package of debt and wondered how the Centre, after continuing SCS for 10 states was not bothered about Andhra Pradesh though it had been promised the status on the floor of Rajya Sabha.

Naidu said just because the Centre was not helping it does not mean that he would keep quiet. "I will do everything in my capacity to take the state forward. Even when the Centre had advised him against waiving farm loans, he had done and in the same breath, the state would complete the Polavaram Project, regardless of the impediments that the Centre might create, he said.