Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu will meet key opposition leaders in New Delhi on Tuesday to enlist their support for his party’s no confidence motion against the central government.
Naidu left for New Delhi on Monday and will be in the national capital for two days hoping to bring all anti-BJP parties together.
This is Naidu’s first visit to New Delhi after the TDP broke its alliance with the BJP in March, and exited the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
A senior TDP leader from Andhra Pradesh, who was not willing to be identified, said that Naidu is likely to meet All India Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, among other opposition leaders.
As of now, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, Trinamool Congress and a few others have supported the TDP’s no-confidence motion in Parliament, he added. The Congress had issued a no-confidence motion against the centre last month.
The opposition YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) also issued a no-confidence motion against the centre in March, and said that its members of Parliament (MPs) will resign after the end of the ongoing session on 6 April if special category status (SCS) is not accorded to Andhra Pradesh. YSRCP chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy last week announced that his party will also protest in New Delhi for the same demand.
The TDP has been at loggerheads with the centre ever since the Union Budget 2018 was announced in February, claiming that Andhra Pradesh was not given its due in terms of funding and that promises made to the state were not fulfilled by the NDA government after Andhra Pradesh’s bifurcation in 2014.
Party MPs have been regularly raising the issue in Parliament since February, and finally the TDP exited the NDA on 16 March.
The TDP in Andhra Pradesh held an all-party meeting in Amaravati last week, which was attended by the Congress, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), employees’ organizations and other civil society bodies, to chart a course of action and protest against the centre. The BJP, Jana Sena Party and YSRCP did not attend it. The TDP leader said that all three of them will be extended an invitation again for the next all-party meeting which will be held after Naidu returns to Andhra Pradesh.