People of Andhra feel cheated on special category status: Jaganmohan Reddy

With the Congress Party mounting its efforts to pass a private member's bill introduced by its MP K V P Ramachandra Rao on Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh, YSR Congress Party chief Jaganmohan Reddy on Saturday asserted that the bill is important to mitigate financial crisis and unemployment in the state.

Speaking on the importance of the special category status, Reddy told ANI that Hyderabad, before bifurcation, used to generate 45 per cent of states revenue for Andhra Pradesh and now that it has been placed in Telangana, it will be difficult for the state to prosper.

"The special category status is required for massive industrialisation to take place, since industrial incentives are given to those states who have got special category status and without these how will the state prosper and how do we give employment to lakhs of people," he said.

He further criticised the BJP and the TDP for failing its electoral promises, adding that these two parties have cheated the people of Andhra Pradesh.

"One of the poll planks of BJP and TDP was to provide special category status to Andhra Pradesh. In fact they even went one step ahead and declared in their manifesto that the state will get 10 years of special category status instead of five. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his speech in Tirupathi, also spoke on the same issue" he said.

"After coming to the power how can they ignore what was promised by them," he asked.

Reddy further called for political accountability from the Union Ministers and wondered if there is any check and balance as it will be difficult to place trust upon them.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jailey, on Friday, told the Rajya Sabha that the Central government is committed to keep all its promises and will fulfill all responsibilities as far as "hand-holding" Andhra Pradesh was concerned.

The statement did not go down well with the Congress Party as its members led by Digvijaya Singh and Anand Sharma staged a walkout.