Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
By Gppande (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

TDP ministers handed in their resignations and have now left the Union Cabinet. The demand of the special category not being granted to Andhra Pradesh didn’t sit right with the TDP. The Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Minister of State for Science and Technology Y.S. Chowdary submitted their resignations to the Prime Minister.

The BJP ministers, Kamineni Srinivas, and Pydikondala Manikyala Rao resigned from the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governor E.S.L. Narasimhan accepted their resignations. Modi’s conversation with Chandrababu Naidu doesn’t seem to have worked. Chowdary called not giving Andhra Pradesh the special status was an ’emotional issue’. According to Raju the centre hadn’t kept its promise to the state.

But the resignations didn’t seem to have come as too much of a surprise to BJP. The resignations were a predictable result of the protests of the ministers that began a few months ago. The break of the alliance comes before the Lok Sabha election and the assembly elections due next year. But both parties aren’t budging so it might be a calculated risk they’re willing to take. Andhra Pradesh would be given all the benefits of the special category without being called as such because of the limits of the 14th Finance Commission to use it only for the Northeastern and other hill states the centre said. BJP in this manner might be hit in both directions from YSRCP and TDP, and YSRCP would not want an alliance with BJP because that would mean losing its Christian and Dalit vote base.

It looks as if TDP will pull entirely out of the NDA by April 6th, but they will still be putting pressure on the parliament for their demands. But this doesn’t mean the TDP will be joining hands with Congress either.

By Sahitya