TDP ministers have quit NDA govt over special status, Naidu tells Andhra assembly : Live updates

Two BJP ministers quit the Andhra Pradesh cabinet on Thursday, a day after chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu indicated his Telugu Desam Party was considering a divorce with the Centre’s ruling alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Naidu said on Wednesday two TDP ministers in the central government will pull out, as tense ties between the allies reached a flashpoint after the CM’s failed bid to secure special category status for Andhra Pradesh.

Politicians in the TDP say the party had weighed several options, such as pulling out of the NDA, MPs resigning and ministers quitting the government, and it was decided that the divorce should be a step-by-step process. If their demand is not met even after pulling out the ministers, the TDP will consider quitting the ruling coalition. The BJP has rejected Naidu’s charge that the central government led by Narendra Modi neglected Andhra, saying the Centre not only fulfilled all its obligations but also went out of its way to help the state.

Follow the live updates here:

11:20am: TDP leader Jayadev Galla says, “Other parties who are sympathetic to our cause have also started protesting on various issues but in support of us. Next step is coming out of the cabinet, after FM Jaitley’s statement yesterday,” according to ANI.

11:15am: “What Arun Jaitley spoke yesterday is not good. You are holding hand of the North Eastern states but not Andhra Pradesh’s. You are giving industrial incentives to them, not to Andhra Pradesh. Why this discrimination?” the chief minister says.

11am: Andhra CM Naidu addresses assembly. “Our ministers in central cabinet and BJP ministers in our cabinet have resigned. However, these ministers worked good in the state. They brought considerable reforms in their departments. I thank them for their services,” ANI reports.

10:47am: TDP leader Srinivas says the party’s central government ministers will resign today. “No one from AP was willing to bifurcate, all resources related to generation of employment were in Hyderabad; bifurcation was not done in a scientific way and injustice done with the Andhra Pradesh,” he tells ANI.

10:41am: TDP MPs protest inside Parliament premises over non-granting of special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

Delhi: TDP MPs protest inside Parliament premises over special category status to Andhra Pradesh pic.twitter.com/tKNTOyPq9f

— ANI (@ANI) March 8, 2018

10:35am: Congress’ Renuka Chowdhury dismisses talk of crisis. “What crisis? This is like match fixing. They are still pretending to withdraw (from the alliance). What would happen if two ministers resign? If you are serious do it seriously,” she says, according to ANI.

10:28am: Union minister Ramdas Athawale says Andhra CM Naidu must think his decision through. “Want to appeal to AP CM N Chandrababu Naidu that he must think over this decision once again for development of people of AP they should stay with NDA. Whenever you seek time from PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah they meet. If all states demand special status it would become very difficult for the government,” he says according to ANI.

10:24am: TDP MPs YS Chowdary and Ashok Gajapathi Raju are expected to give a statement in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha respectively today.

10:20am: Shiv Sena leader Manisha Kayande says the current TDP-BJP tussle is due to the BJP’s overconfidence. “Two ministers from TDP are about to resign, BJP should’ve thought about it. Former NDA leaders had kept the alliance together. Now it’s overconfident. 2019 will be challenging for BJP,” ANI quotes her saying.

10:15am: “When we’re asking for our right it can’t be rejected. Alliance is still under negotiation. We don’t want to make it a political fight between TDP-BJP, but a fight for the state,” ANI quotes TDP MP Ram Mohan Naidu as saying.

10:08am: BJP ministers Dr Kamineni Srinivas and Pydikondala Manikyala Rao resign from the Andhra Pradesh cabinet to CM Naidu in Amaravati. Srinivas was the minister for health and Rao was the endowments minister.

#AndhraPradesh : BJP Ministers in Andhra Pradesh cabinet submitted their resignation in the CM office in Amaravati. pic.twitter.com/0P33Y4S5Uu

— ANI (@ANI) March 8, 2018

10am: Shiv Sena says the developments in Andhra are as expected. “Other parties have walked out of NDA too. Allies no longer have good relations with BJP. Gradually their grudges will spill out and eventually they’ll walk out of alliance,” ANI quotes Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut.

9:30am: BJP state legislator PVN Madhav says, “Decided that our ministers will resign from TDP Cabinet. We will be going to the people and telling them all the things Centre has done for the state. Since independence till date, no state has received as many favours as that were given to Andhra Pradesh,” according to ANI.

9:10am: TDP’s YS Chowdary, junior minister for science and technology, says, “It is not a good move but unfortunately due to unavoidable circumstances we’re stepping down as ministers. Our President (Naidu) said that we will continue to be a partner of NDA. We are most likely to meet PM also,” according to ANI.

8:37am: BJP ministers are expected to skip the Andhra cabinet meeting to be held by CM Chandrababu Naidu to approve state budget.

8:35am: Andhra assembly session to begin at 9am.

8:30am: BJP ministers in the Andhra cabinet – Kamineni Srinivas and P Manikyalal Rao – are expected to submit their resignations to the Speaker.

6:30am: Congress leader Ahmed Patel reacts to CM Naidu’s remark that he couldn’t speak to PM Modi directly. “It is very unfortunate that the Prime Minister couldn’t take the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s phone call on such an important matter. This doesn’t augur well for the interest of the people of Andhra Pradesh,” ANI quoted him as saying.

Tug of war

Before the Wednesday night’s announcement, TDP leaders said the BJP had pushed them to a position where taking a “tough stand” was the only option left. Naidu said he will take a call on whether or not to remain in the NDA before the second leg of the budget session ends.

The TDP has 16 members in the Lok Sabha and six in the Rajya Sabha. To be sure, the BJP and the NDA have a comfortable majority, and the threatened pullout of TDP from the coalition would pose no crisis for the government.

“As a first step, both our central ministers will resign from the Narendra Modi cabinet on Thursday morning,” Naidu told journalists late in the night. “With regard to alliance with the BJP, we will decide on party-to-party basis later,” he said.

Naidu made the announcement after discussions with his party’s members of Parliament in Delhi through teleconference and his own cabinet ministers in the state secretariat in Amaravati, following an announcement by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in Delhi categorically ruling out special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu said Jaitley’s statement clearly indicated that the NDA government was not interested in resolving the crisis in Andhra Pradesh and coming to the rescue of the state, which, he said, had suffered in the aftermath of its 2014 bifurcation. “When the purpose of our joining the government is not served, we don’t have any option but to come out of it,” he said.

He said that as a courtesy, he called up the Prime Minister’s Office to inform Modi of the decision. “I could not reach the prime minister on phone. Our officials informed the PMO of the decision,” the chief minister said.

Divorce imminent?

Politicians in the TDP familiar with the situation said the party had weighed several options, such as pulling out of the NDA, MPs resigning and ministers quitting the government, and it was decided that the divorce should be a step-by-step process.

TDP leaders said pulling out ministers would send a signal to the BJP and will keep its hopes of special category status for Andhra Pradesh alive. If the demand is not met even after pulling out the ministers, the TDP will consider quitting the ruling coalition.

Reaching out

In New Delhi earlier on Wednesday, the Centre tried to pacify its ally, saying every commitment made during the 2014 bifurcation of the state to create Telangana would be honoured. “We are committed to giving monetary equivalent to special status to Andhra Pradesh,” finance minister Jaitley said.

The minister said the special category status existed when the state was bifurcated, but such treatment is now constitutionally restricted to just the North-Eastern states and the three hilly states after the implementation of the 14th Finance Commission recommendations.

Jaitley said the Centre is committed to funding all of Andhra Pradesh’s programmes to the tune of 90%, which is equivalent to the aid special category states get, through other means like external agencies. The Centre, he added, is even willing to accept the state government’s suggestion of routing such funds through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

At meetings last month, the Centre suggested creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV; a company created for a specific purpose) with the funds from NABARD going into it. Jaitley said the Andhra Pradesh government is yet to come back on the modalities of such a transfer.

Political equations

The TDP also has to deal with rival YSR Congress Party headed by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, who has announced that his party MPs will resign from Parliament on April 6, the last day of the second leg of the budget session, if the demand for special category status is not met by April 5.

YSR Congress won 8 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and remains TDP’s main rival in Andhra Pradesh, a state which Chandrababu Naidu won from the Congress after 10 years. Jagan Mohan Reddy has made special category status an election issue for the party.

Of the total 175 assembly constituencies, the TDP won 102 seats in 2014. It doesn’t have to depend on the support of the four BJP legislators to maintain a majority, an advantage that Naidu wants to leverage.

Naidu blamed state BJP leaders for launching a counter-attack on his government, rather than taking up the state’s issues with the Centre. “You cannot run away from your responsibility by attacking us. The 130-year-old Congress party was completely routed from AP for hurting the sentiments of the people. If you continue to hurt our sentiments by denying the special category status, which is our right, you will have to meet the same fate,” he said.

The BJP has two ministers in the Naidu government – health minister Kamineni Srinivas and endowments minister P Manikyala Rao – and they will have to quit if he announces a parting of ways with the NDA. “We are ready to get out of the state cabinet within minutes of getting the directions from the party leadership in Delhi,” Srinivas said.