CPI(M) Central Committee member V. Srinivasa Rao on Sunday urged the people of the poll-bound Puducherry to take with a pinch of salt the BJP’s poll promise of providing Special Category Status(SCS) to the Union Territory.
PM’s promise
Coordinating the election campaign across the seven Assembly segments, including four in Nellore district, in support of the party nominee N. Yadagiri for the Tirupati Lok Sabha seat, Mr. Rao said it was in Tirupati that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised SCS to Andhra Pradesh during the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
After coming to power, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had expressed the Centre’s inability to grant SCS to Andhra Pradesh, and put the blame on the scheme of financial devolution from the Centre to the States evolved by the 14th Finance Commission for the same, Mr. Rao recalled.
The ruling BJP at the Centre should prove its sincerity by first giving the coveted status to Andhra Pradesh, which had been struggling to overcome the bifurcation blues, before going ahead with the SCS for Puducherry.
Pawan cautioned
He said the Jana Sena Party should not get carried away by BJP State president Somu Veerraju’s reported declaration that JSP supremo Pawan Kalyan would be the JSP-BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate in 2024. The saffron party only wanted to placate the JSP activists, who were upset with the party giving the prestigious Tirupati LS seat to the BJP as part of an electoral understanding, he added.
To prove his point, Mr. Rao cited the reported statement of BJP candidate K. Ratna Prabha that the actor-politician would not be the Chief Ministerial candidate.
He accused the BJP of trying to “communalise” the political situation in Andhra Pradesh by planning a yatra from Kapilatheertham in Tirupati to Ramatheertham in north coastal Andhra Pradesh, where an idol of Lord Rama had been desecrated.
Mr. Rao also wanted Mr. Pawan Kalyan to use his good offices with the BJP-led government at the Centre to hasten the CBI probe into the gutting of the Antarvedi Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple chariot as the case had made little progress in the last eight months.
