Rajya Sabha member and senior Congress leader T. Subbarami Reddy on Monday termed the ongoing confrontation between the Telugu Desam and the BJP as a ‘big drama’ and declared that it was up to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to decide whether to stay in NDA or not over the Centre’s raw deal meted out to Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation.
Addressing a press conference here, he said the BJP-led NDA government after repeatedly stating that it was committed to implementing the promises made in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, had convinced Mr. Naidu to be content with a ‘special package’ in lieu of denial of Special Category Status (SCS).
He said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, then a senior leader of the BJP, had insisted that the UPA government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should give SCS for 10 years instead of five years at the time of debate over bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
