TDP: Budget woes remain but won’t pull plug for now
NDA TIES In wait and watch mode, will try to talk to Centre to see if the issues are resolved, says the Naiduled party
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will not pull out of the NDA for now but would raise in and outside Parliament the treatment meted out to Andhra Pradesh in the budget, senior party leader and Union minister YS Chowdary said on Sunday.
The decision was taken during a meeting the TDP’s parliamentary party held at the residence of party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu in Amaravati.
Chowdary said several issues pertaining to the state were pending with the Centre. “We shall try first to talk to the central government to see that they are resolved. If there is still no response from the Centre, our party president will take an appropriate decision (on continuing in the NDA). Till then, we shall wait and watch,” Chowdary said.
The BJP’s biggest southern ally is upset over “being ignored” in the Union budget presented on February 1. The meeting was called to decide if the TDP, the NDA’s third largest constituent with 16 members in the Lok Sabha, should continue in the ruling coalition.
“The people of the state are
NEW DELHI:
seething with anger with the injustice done to the state in the central budget. We need to reflect the same in Parliament,” one of the MPs, who attended the meeting, quoted Naidu as saying.
Naidu is also learnt to have told party members to stage protests in Parliament, even if it led to their suspension, the MP said.
The chief minister would explore all options for getting what was legitimately due to the state as per the AP Reorganisation Act, Chowdary, who is the minister of state for science and technology in the Modi government, said after the three-hour meeting.
There was nothing more important to the TDP than the interests of the state, he said. The party had been telling the Centre that the state had suffered due to the unscientific bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
“We expected that at least in the current budget, which is the last full-fledged budget before the next elections, justice would be done to the state. Unfortunately, there was no mention of several issues,” Chowdary said.
Parliament had in February 2014 passed the Andhra Pradesh