Naidu seeks Shah help in seats hike

TD president N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday met BJP national president Amit Shah at his residence in Delhi along with Union ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu and Sujana Chowdary and requested him to use his good offices with the Prime Minister and the Union home minister to get them to expedite the amendment on increasing the number of Assembly seats in AP and TS.

The AP CM greeted the BJP chief for the party’s stupendous victory in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and offered him TTD prasadam.

According to sources, the AP CM told Amit Shah that delimitation of Assembly segments in both the states was part of the AP Reorganisation Act, and even after almost three years, the promise to increase the seats hasn’t been kept.

The TD chief also conveyed to Amit Shah that he was in favour of his party continuing in the NDA and the alliance in AP even in 2019.

The AP CM said that it was important for the alliance to ensure the Opposition, especially the YSR Congress, does not get a respectable number of seats in the coming elections and delimitation would achieve this.

He also requested Amit Shah to bring an amendment to Section 26 of AP Reorganisation Act instead of amending Article 170 of the Constitution as that would require a special majority to get the amendment passed in both Houses of Parliament as well as 50 per cent of Legislatures in the country.