Jaitley promises to back Andhra fully But stays away from promising special status

Steering clear of fulfilling former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance in the Rajya Sabha in February 2014 to grant the status of the special category state to Andhra Pradesh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday vowed to support and handhold the state to the fullest extent till it recovers to progress on its own.

He was replying to a 2-day discussion in the Rajya Sabha, agreed after two days of ruckus drowning the proceedings over the ministers and BJP members creating noisy scenes last Friday to scuttle voting on a Congress member’s Bill for special status to Andhra Pradesh.

On providing more funds to the state, Jaitley said the Centre has limited resources. “Central government must also have sufficient resources available for itself after having supported state governments,” he said. Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, who led the Congress walkout on not being satisfied, pointed out that even the Union Cabinet had decided on March 1, 2014, subsequent to Dr Manmohan Singh’s commitment in the Rajya Sabha, on the special status to Andhra Pradesh and as such the government cannot wriggle out.

Jaitley said a lot of commitments have been already made in the Act bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, like setting up various central institutions, and the government is committed to fulfill all these commitments. He, however, expressed difficulty in declaring special category status that enables the state get 90% of cost of all central schemes from the Centre.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, who was once a votary for special status to Andhra Pradesh, backed Jaitley on the 14th Finance Commission report coming after Dr Manmohan Singh’s assurance and it has already given an alternate formula under which the states like West Bengal, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh will get extra money from the Centre. Jaitley said the government has no doubts that enactment of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act for creation of the separate state of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh has lost revenue and the Centre will be handholding it to bounce back.

“Undivided Andhra was a revenue surplus state. But the division created a situation where the more lucrative part has gone to Telangana.” Minister of State for Science Y S Chaudhary of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) interrupted Jaitley to ask for being generous to Andhra, only to get a reprimand from Deputy Chairman P J Kurien that he should understand collective responsibility of the ministers. Prof. Kurien later pulled up TDP member C M Ramesh too, reminding him that he was from the ruling party that cannot question the government like this.