The YSR Congress has demanded that the Telugu Desam Party withdraw its support to the BJP-led Central Government as it failed to grant the special category status to Andhra Pradesh as assured on the floor of Parliament.
The Centre was dodging the special category status, but the State Government was maintaining stoic silence on the issue. The TDP should come out of the Narendra Modi-led NDA coalition instead of mortgaging the Telugu pride in the national capital, YSRC spokesman K. Parthasarathi said.
It was time Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu Government served an ultimatum to the Central Government since the BJP leaders pressed for the grant of the special category status while they were in the opposition. With two BJP Ministers in its Cabinet and two TDP Ministers in the Union Cabinet, the TDP should mount pressure on the Centre to grant special category status as it would help in accelerated development of the new State.
There was no reason why the Centre should backtrack on the assurance given in the Parliament and the YSRC president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy had been reminding the Union Government about the assurance at every given opportunity.
Probe student suicide
Meanwhile, YSRC MLA R.K. Roja demanded that the Government order a judicial inquiry into the circumstances that resulted in the suicide by architecture student of Acharya Nagarjuna University Rishiteswari and arrest the abettors of the crime immediately. She condemned the lathi-charge on students who went to the Chief Minister’s camp office in Vijayawada to represent the matter.
Ms. Roja alleged that the TDP was trying to hush up the incident and shield the guilty. The officials concerned including the principal of the college should be immediately arrested as he did not act upon the complaints lodged against ragging by a section of students. The YSRC on its part would depute a fact finding committee to the university to know about the details.