Special category status in Goa manifesto gives TDP new ammo

Amaravati: The BJP’s willingness to include the demand for special category status for Goa in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections has triggered a new controversy and has given enough ammunition to the TDP. TDP national president N Chandrababu Naidu has directed the party leaders to make this into a major poll issue and expose the double-standards of the BJP on special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu said the BJP had been going to town claiming that it could not give special category status because NITI Aayog had stopped it. But the bluff was exposed and now it alleges that the state government took a U-turn and did not accept the help that was being extended by the Centre.

The willingness of the BJP to include SCS for Goa in its manifesto clearly indicates that the saffron party was acting in a vindictive manner. He said if SCS was possible for Goa then why did it not give it to Andhra Pradesh when it was promised by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the floor of Rajya Sabha.