Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu today said his party will not join the NDA even if the BJP approaches it for the 2019 general elections.
He said the party's no-confidence motion against the government was a battle of "morality versus majority".
Asserting that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had joined the NDA in 2014 only to ensure justice to the people of the state, Naidu said, "We are not power hungry. We never aspired for cabinet berths."
On the BJD staging a walkout from Parliament during the debate on the no-confidence motion yesterday, exposing chinks in Opposition unity, Naidu said, "He (BJD chief Naveen Patnaik) is an old friend... They will be taken on board."
Asked if the TDP would join the NDA for the 2019 elections if the BJP promises other benefits to Andhra Pradesh, he said, "No. I just want that justice is done to my state."
Contesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remark in the Lok Sabha that special status cannot be extended to the state "as the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FCC) does not allow it", the Andhra Pradesh chief minister claimed, "The FFC says it does not have any role in it... don't drag us into it. It is the government which has to take a call."
On the prime minister terming Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao more mature than Naidu, the Andhra Pradesh chief minister said, "I am senior to the prime minister himself. How can he say that? I became chief minister in 1995 while Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001."
Referring to Modi's remark that the "Congress killed the mother and saved the child. Had I have been there, I would have saved the mother too", he said, "We have waited for years for him to do so."
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