Special Status Row: TDP Walks Out Of NDA Govt
Ruling party in Andhra Pradesh, Telugu Desam Party has decided to cut the ties with NDA in the Central government. This decision plays a spoiler for BJP celebrations for the win in the three north-eastern states, and also clouds the ruling NDA’s electoral gains in AP which sends 25 members to Lok Sabha. It is the same number of seats from all of the North-East in the lower house.
In the wake of the Telugu Desam Party’s decision to come out of NDA, two BJP Ministers from the state has submitted resignation from Naidu’s Cabinet this morning. The Health & Education Minister Kamineni Srinivas, Endowments Minister P Manikyala Rao have tendered their resignations to the Chief Minister this morning ahead of the commencement of the state budget session.
TDP on the other hand has asked its MPs who are the Union Cabinet Ministers – P Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Y Satyanarayana Chowdary to resign from their respective Cabinet posts. In a press conference late in the evening on Wednesday, Mr. Naidu expressed anguish over the denial of the special status to the state and questioned the “humiliation and injustice” by the Central government.
Mr. Naidu has made his stand clear in his official Facebook page.
The current political developments are significant for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. BJP and TDP together hold 17 Lok Sabha members from the state while the remaining are from the YSR Congress Party. However, BJP runs in the risk of further being marginalized for having disregarded Andhra Pradesh sentiments, the same way Congress got defeated in the after state bifurcation in 2014.
In the present context, BJP leaders claimed the TDP Chief was rattled by the growing traction of the Andhra Pradesh state opposition YSRCP and its political strategies. YSRCP has already announced it would get its members to resign from the Parliament the next month if the central government does not grant a special category status to AP.