New Delhi: With Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu pulling out of the NDA alliance at the Centre on Friday and moving a no-confidence motion against the government over the special category status, Railways minister Piyush Goyal said the decision was more "sentimental than factual".
"All the commitments made in the AP reorganization act have been fulfilled cent per cent. We gave Rs 2,500 crore but no work was done on Amaravati. The topic of Andhra Pradesh was more sentimental than factual," said Goyal, while speaking at News18 Rising India Summit.
Downplaying Naidu's claim of his state not getting its rightful share, Goyal said it was the central government which provided Andhra Pradesh the monetary back up.
"Even when the 14th Financial Commission decided not to provide special category status to states except North East, it was the central government who still provided them monetary back up," said Goyal.
Stating that "politics is all about possibilities" and said that Naidu "asked for money" but never "implemented anything."
"Naidu has failed to do anything. We gave them funds but if you go to Amravati nothing has happened on the ground. Now suddenly Naidu is blaming us. We have given them all the funds. They only asked for money but failed to implement anything," said Goyal.
Telangana minister KT Rama Rao responded to Goyal’s assertions that the Centre had done a lot for Andhra Pradesh and reminded him that similar promises were made to Telangana as well.
“Could you be kind enough to also share with us about the promises delivered to the people of Telangana? Let me remind you that many assurances were given in the same AP Reorganisation Act for Telangana as well," he tweeted.
Dear Piyush Ji, Could you be kind enough to also share with us about the promises delivered to the people of Telangana? Let me remind you that many assurances were given in the same AP Reorganisation Act for Telangana as wellRegards,KTR https://t.co/s6002BbVAd— KTR (@KTRTRS) March 16, 2018
On the other hand, N Chandrababu Naidu said he was fighting a "dharma yuddh" to secure the state's 'legitimate' rights and parties at the national level were backing TDP's no-confidence motion against the NDA government due to his party's credibility.
Explaining his reasons to join the MOdi government, Naidu said: "We joined the NDA in the first place only to protect our state’s interests in the aftermath of bifurcation. We waited for four years with the hope that the Centre will honour all the promises but it only meted out injustice to us, Naidu said.
However, the BJP never cared about TDP, he charged adding while in the opposition, it promised to take care of the state and its needs but once in power, "it completely ignored us."
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