A pot full of clay dug from the premises of Parliament and another potful of water from the Yamuna were given as a special package to Andhra Pradesh by none other than the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Marking the foundation laying of the capital city of Andhra Pradesh, Modi “gifted” the two pots to AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, as if to symbolise the Centre’s help, on October 22 last year.
The piecemeal help for sporadic central projects like IITs, IIM, AIIMS and the likes and some funding for new Capital city from the Centre has been coming to the truncated State of Andhra Pradesh. But, surely, that is not sufficient help for a State grappling with paucity of funds.
Well, that doesn’t endorse Chandrababu Naidu’s extravagance. Naidu is increasingly turning out to be a spendthrift in his latest stint as the Chief Minister of residuary Andhra Pradesh. We are not discussing the profligacy of AP Government, now. But we cannot rule out the possibility of the Centre trying to use it as the stick to beat the AP Government when it comes to sanctioning of funds.
The AP Government will surely face embarrassment, if the Centre takes up audit of the funds it has so far granted to the State under different heads.
What is intriguing is that almost every leader at the Centre knows that according Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh was not possible. Chandrababu Naidu is not naïve, either. Then why have Venkaiah Naidu and Chandrababu Naidu sought to keep the people in the hope that the special category status is not very far away?
The announcement of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs HP Chaudhary and a more categorical assertion by Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance, put AP Government in a tight spot.
Finance Minister’s attempts to assuage the hurt feelings of the MPs from AP, especially those belonging to the Telugu Desam Party, on the floor of Lok Sabha on Thursday did not bear fruit. Jaitley cleverly evaded the use of the expression of ‘special category status’.
The Minister said that the State had received Rs 900 crore in 2015-16 under the 14th Finance Commission recommendations. The minister raised doubts over the claims of AP over the revenue deficit. According to the Centre’s calculations, the revenue deficit worked out to Rs. 6,609 crore, while the AP Government projected it as Rs. 16,000 crore. However, the Centre had given Rs. 2,800 crore towards the revenue deficit. Jaitley also said that the Centre released Rs. 2,050 crore for the construction of the new Capital city.
Jaitley vaguely said that the construction of Polavaram project was the commitment given to AP by the Centre and it would fulfil it. However, there is an earth and heaven difference in the cost estimate and the fund allocation.
Almost all ministers and the Chief Minister, all political parties in the State are pouring scorn on the Centre for its indifference.
Surprisingly, instead of talking economics, Chandrababu Naidu, the other day, digressed from the core issue and ranted about how he was working hard and sought to know if hard work was wrong on his part. He also asserted at a meeting in Tekkali on Thursday night that positions were not important for him, but his objective was that the people of the State should benefit at large.
When nobody was auditing his number of working hours and when there was no demand from anyone that he should step down from the Chief Ministership, this kind of a talk doesn’t augur well for his stature. It only proves his political shallowness after four decades of experience in public life.
Whether the question raised by MP Avanti Srinivas on the special category status in Lok Sabha had the endorsement of the party supremo is not known. But reports suggest that Naidu gave the MP a piece of his mind for raising it.
As if to add fuel to the fire, Minister Prathipati Pulla Rao said that it wouldn’t take a minute for the TDP to severe connections with the BJP and come out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), but the party would take a call once a clear announcement from the Centre came. What more clarity Pulla Rao wants is, however, not known.
What the three Union ministers – Chaudhary, Sinha and Jaitley – told the Parliament is just the verbal form of the potful of clay and water that Modi gifted to Naidu. A material gift, indeed, eh?
