AP progress possible with Congress only

The political uncertainty and disunity among leaders has become a curse to the state. Except the Congress party, all other parties in the state are striving for their political mileage, disregarding the interests of the state.

The young leaders, who have entered politics in the recent times, are interested in getting applause and whistles to their aggressive speeches only. Unfortunately, the young leaders have become pawns in the hands of communal forces. The ruling Telugu Desam party, which was in NDA alliance for four years, realised that vehement opposition grown among the people against it for its failure in getting accorded Special Category Status (SCS), Railway zone and steel factory in Kadapa. 

As a damage-control method, the TDP quit the BJP-led NDA and later exit from Union Cabinet as well. The TDP embarked Dharma Porata Deeksha against the Centre. It launched agitation against the Centre solely, without taking the Opposition parties along.

When the Narendra Modi-led Centre filed an affidavit in the Apex Court, making clear that there is no viability to establish steel factory in Kadapa, the YSRCP and the Jana Sena leaders did not condemn the Centre’s attitude nor spoke against the Centre’s decision. The two party leaders, instead of conducting “Yatras” should launch agitation in Delhi itself demanding that the Centre do justice for AP.

The BJP state president, who earlier quit the Congress party citing that it had meted out injustice to AP, has become a mute spectator when the Central government is doing injustice in the issues of SCS, Railway Zone and Kadapa Steel factory. Don’t the leaders of Opposition wish AP get SCS? Keeping quiet when injustice is being meted by the Centre to AP is irresponsibility of parties.

It is unfortunate that the leaders in AP failed to adopt a firm stand, which Tamil Nadu leaders adopted and succeeded in the Jallikattu issue. Taking advantage of political uncertainty and disunity among leaders in AP, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have started new conspiracy politics, which would be a detrimental to the state’s progress.

The Centre has extended thousands of crores of rupees funds for the development of Gujarat, at the same time, it is telling lame excuses to extend funds to AP. Is it not discrimination of Centre towards states?

The BJP leadership has understood that granting funds projects to AP would not yield any political benefits to it and that is why it adopted a step motherly attitude towards AP. When the Centre announced Special Package instead of SCS, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu defended it as he was in NDA then. 

The Congress party has been being fighting inside and outside Parliament for the last four years exerting pressure on the Modi-led Centre to fulfil the AP State Re-Organisation Act 2014 provisions, which were promised to AP when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister. The TDP and the YSRCP leaders are focusing on how to come to power but fail to tell people how they could resolve the issues.

The newly appointed Congress affairs in-charge in AP, Oomman Chandy, is determined to bring the past glory to the Congress in the state in the coming months. He reviewed the Congress party’s strength and elicited views from all leaders. He made it clear that the Congress will not align with any regional parties in the 2019 elections, but align with people of the state.

The Centre is doing grave injustice to AP by not granting SCS, Railway Zone, Steel factory, funds to Polavaram project and national institutions. Chandrababu Naidu had been to Delhi for 28 times but could not achieve anything. He degraded the self-respect of Telugus. He agreed to whatever wrong decision taken by Narendra Modi and demonetisation could be cited in this regard. 

The people of the state should understand that if the Congress is in power in the State and at Centre, it can resolve all the problems of AP. Despite knowing the fact that the Congress party would taste a debacle, if AP was divided, Sonia Gandhi agreed for the division of the state. The then UPA government made all arrangements to the residuary state of AP including construction of new capital city.

We can get our demands conceded by the Centre, if all non-BJP leaders, students, farmers, employees and film industry people come on a single platform. The Congress will continue to efforts to unite the non-BJP forces in the state for the benefits of AP. The Congress evolved a strategy to ensure that the anti-BJP votes are not split in the 2019 elections.  

By: Kolanukonda Shivaji
(Writer is APCC Spokesperson and AICC member)