Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will lead a delegation of ministers and officials to London to attend an international conclave on investment next week.
British Deputy High Commissioner Andrew McAllister met the Chief Minister in Vijayawada two days ago and extended an invitation to attend the International Investment Promotion Conclave to be held in the UK capital from March 10 to 13.
"I will be attending the conclave to seek investments for our state, particularly the capital region Amaravati," Naidu said.
State ministers Yanamala Ramakrishnudu (Finance) and P Narayana (Municipal Administration), AP Capital City Development and Management Corp CMD D Lakshmi Parthasarathy and Principal Secretary (Finance) P V Ramesh, among other senior officials, will accompany Naidu on the tour.
Naidu said irrespective of caste, creed, sex or region,
India is one as a nation, with all its people being nationalists and owing their allegience to the country.
"It is not a geographical identity", he said.
He said nationalism is loving the country and its people and they believe in unity, integrity and sovereignty of the country.
"Nobody is forcing people to change religion...Some people are trying to give different intrepratation," he said.
Justifying the imposition of President's Rule in Uttarakhand, the Minister said "a lot of hue and cry and crocodile tears are being shed particularly by our Congress friends".
"Congress is coming out with a peculiar (thing). If other people join Congress, it is affection. If somebody goes out of Congress, it is defection. That is the perfection they made all these years," he said.
Naidu said while Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi had imposed President's Rule only six times, Congress party imposed it 91 times, including 7 times by Jawaharlal Nehru, 50 times by Indira Gandhi, 6 times by Rajiv Gandhi, 11 times by Narasimha Rao and 10 times by Manmohan Singh.
He said whenever a situation has arisen, Article 356 is used. "First time this was used to set right the internal problems in Congress in 1953. Second occasion was to dismiss a popularly elected Communist government of Kerala in 1959 when EMS Namboodripad was the chief minister," he said.
Naidu said when N T Rama Rao challenged the Congress, his popularly elected government was dismissed in Andhra pradesh, even as Congress used it against Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu.
"It was necessitiated because there was a breakdown of Constitution and the Finance Bill was not passed...So the Centre thought the state should not be left in a situation where from April 1 onwards there is no money for salaries and development. So the Centre stepped in. We have not dissolved the assembly. Assembly is still there. So the criticism against the government is very unjustified," he said on Uttarakhand.
