Centre has gone beyond its means to help Andhra: BJP

The BJP today said the claim that the Centre was not helping Andhra Pradesh was "deliberate distortion of facts" and asserted that the Narendra Modi government had gone beyond its means to help the state after its bifurcation. As Andhra Pradesh's ruling TDP, a BJP ally, and various opposition parties mounted pressure on the government seeking more funds for the state, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said, "Please do not continue with this propaganda that the Centre is not helping the state. The Centre has gone way beyond its means to help the state."
He said that over the past few weeks, many statements had been made by various people about the implementation of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. "These statements seem to be deliberate distortion of facts as far as the support of the Government of India is concerned," he told reporters at the BJP office here. Whatever was promised in the act, the current government has done more than that in a short span of time, he said. Explaining in detail about various initiatives and projects taken up by the Narendra Modi-led government for the state, the BJP leader said, "It is time to place the facts before the people. It is time to clear the air." Listing various development works initiated by the NDA government, Rao said 11 institutions and one super-speciality hospital have to be established in the state by 2022, out of which nine have already become functional. Three airports in in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati have been expanded to international standards and were made operational. Rao, accompanied by the state BJP president , shared a 17-page note with the media listing various initiatives taken by the Centre for the development of the state. Days before the presentation of the Union Budget for 2018-19, cracks appeared in the alliance between BJP and TDP, which is ruling Andhra Pradesh, after Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had said his party was ready to chart its own course if the former was not keen to continue with the alliance. Naidu had been demanding special package and more allocation of funds for the state, while the BJP is maintaining that it has been making all necessary allocations for the state.