A former NDA ally, the TDP chief wondered why the BJP did not consider Andhra Pradesh a gateway to the south, but “tried every trick to come to power in Karnataka”.
Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who quit the BJP-led Central government in March over unkept promises, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made “more enemies than friends” in his four years in office.
It’s Modi’s style of politics that will “be the reason for his defeat”, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief told reporters Tuesday after a three-day party conclave ended.
“The BJP kept saying that Karnataka is their gateway to the south and they tried every trick to come to power (in the state). What I don’t understand is, when they had a door open already in Andhra, why did they deliberately shut it?” he said.
The TDP and the BJP had joined hands ahead of the general and assembly elections in 2014, a watershed year for the state that saw it bifurcated to carve out Telangana after a decades-long secessionist movement.
Naidu, an opponent of the exercise, built his poll campaign around it, targeting the UPA government for “splitting the Telugu people”.
Having lost cash cow Hyderabad to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh also claims the division took a big bite out of its revenue and left it at a financial disadvantage.
Creases in the relationship of on-off allies TDP and BJP appeared as the special status promised to Andhra under the bifurcation legislation never came, with Naidu finally walking out of the alliance after the Centre said the request could not be granted.
Finance Commission row
At the press meet, Naidu also brought up the controversial terms of reference for the 15th Finance Commission, which specify a changed benchmark for population calculation. Several states have alleged that the change will lower fund allocation for those that have managed to control their populations while benefiting the “laggards”.
The Andhra chief minister said he was opposed to the BJP’s attempt to suppress the rights of states, adding that southern states were being “penalised for being progressive”.
“We are not against dividing funds equitably among all states. But it is not co-operative federalism to penalise a progressive state while not asking a poorly performing state to catch up,” he added.
Naidu said although the southern states had successfully controlled population growth, he was now “encouraging people in his state to have more children”.
‘Federalism at its weakest’
The TDP chief — who assumed the reins of the party after a ‘coup’ against his father-in-law, the legendary film star NTR — said though party bias had always plagued Centre-state ties, federalism was “at its weakest point now”.
“The Centre will be strong only when the states are strong,” he added.
When asked if a strong, stable government could deliver better results than a coalition administration, Naidu said the Vajpayee government had performed much better than the Modi government despite the fact that the BJP, at the time, did not have the requisite numbers.
Naidu claimed Modi had lost the plot on projecting a clean, corruption-free image of himself and the BJP, citing the party’s decision to field at least seven associates and friends of tainted Ballari mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy in the recent Karnataka election.
“Look who he is friends with now. The people will not forgive his associations with Gali Janardhan Reddy and Jagan Mohan Reddy (YSR Congress chief, who faces graft cases) in Andhra Pradesh. His slogans on being corruption-free have turned out to be hollow after all,” he said.
A stern administrator makes no new friends and loses old ones when he impartially lays down rules. We need many more such administrators!