Amid protests and shouting of slogans Andhra Pradesh Assembly today passed a resolution urging the Centre to accord special status to the state enabling it to achieve a speedy growth. Speaker K Sivaprasada Rao adjourned the House to meet on Wednesday after passing the resolution that saw a heated debate and led to chaos for some time.
Leader of the house N Chandrababu Naidu presented the motion for special tag debate and spoke at length for about one and half hour despite potshots by the Opposition Leader YS Jaganmohan Reddy. The speaker announced that the House got unanimous support for special tag. During his presentation Chandrababu made a strong pitch for special tag as the Centre is said to have ‘changed’ its mind to offer the special status. This is in the wake of Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu’s comments at Nellore a few days ago that they will not backtrack special status and Prime Minister Narendra Modi may take a final call after NITI Ayog submits its report on the issue which needs amendment of law.
Maintaining that he repeatedly asked the Prime Minister for special tag, the leader of the House also sought the Centre to give better financial assistance to make the State to develop as that of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, tax exemptions, funds for capital city construction, setting up of 13 Central institutes, implementation of Section 8 and funds for Polavaram project. (NSS)