What happened to the oft-repeated promise of Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of getting Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh, if people send enough number of YSRCP members to the Lok Sabha, asked APCC president Sake Sailajanath on Wednesday.
At the party workers’ meeting here, Mr. Sailajanath asked Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy: “Now you have 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha, why are you not putting pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the NDA government to grant SCS for the State?”
Alleging that there was a tacit understanding between the YSRCP and the BJP, the Congress leader said it was ludicrous to say after a Cabinet meeting that it would ask the BJP government not to implement the National Population Register survey to be conducted from April 1 with the existing set of questions, while it needs to just issue a Government Order stalling the exercise in A.P. The Chief Minister was speaking of Muslims losing confidence if such an exercise was taken up with question number 15 and 16 explicitly seeking the date of birth and place of birth of one’s father, but he did not restrict the District Collector from giving a statement on the NPR exercise.
“This shows the duality of the YSRCP government on the issue and it must forthwith issue a gazette notification saying the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register will not be implemented in the present form,” Mr. Sailajanath said. Had the YSRCP not voted for the CAA, people could have believed it, but it was talking in a different tone to just pacify the people’s feelings, he alleged. The NPR was the first step towards NRC and everyone can see the fate of 18 lakh people from Assam, who lost their citizenship, though they were Hindus, he added.
Local body polls
The Congress would fight the local body elections on its own and not align with any party, the APCC president announced.
