Andhra CM Naidu meets Amit Shah, briefs him on state's fiscal issues

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu met Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his two-day visit to the national capital. Naidu, who was on his second visit to New Delhi in less than a fortnight, met Shah on late Tuesday evening.

Later, Naidu posted on X that he met Shah “to apprise him of the devastating condition of finances that Andhra Pradesh had slipped into over the past five years.”

The Andhra CM said he also discussed the “findings of the four white papers” that his government has released over the past month. He said the ‘white papers’ have outlined the “staggering debt accumulated between FY19-FY24 that spiralled our state’s finances out of control.”

He said the “Centre and the state government will devise a comprehensive recovery plan and bring our state’s economy back on track.” The four white papers relate to the reconstruction of Amaravati, another on the Polavaram project, a third on the state of Andhra’s power sector and a fourth on the alleged looting of resources by the previous state government.

Sources in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) described Naidu’s meeting with Shah as a “private one-on-one meeting”. The TDP is confident that the forthcoming Union Budget, to be tabled on Tuesday, will heed some of the issues that the Andhra CM had flagged during his previous visit on July 4, especially the demand to set up an oil refinery in his state.