Congress to step up stir for spl status

Tirupati: Congress will step up pressure on the NDA government to accord special status to Andhra Pradesh, as it is the only way to bail out the State from the financial crisis it is facing in the aftermath of the bifurcation, PCC president N Raghuveera Reddy said.

Speaking to media here on Thursday, Raghuveera recalling party national president Sonia Gandhi’s vociferous demand in Parliament recently that the NDA government fulfill all the assurances, including special status made during the passage of bifurcation bill, said that the party had decided to intensify the struggle at national level for achieving special status to AP.

In this connection, he flayed the BJP and TDP MPs from the state for remaining silent when Sonia Gandhi was fighting for the cause of AP in Parliament and added that we had lost a golden chance because of their cowardly act to force the Union government concede our demand.

He further said that whether they (BJP and TDP) come in support or not the Congress would go ahead with its plans to force Narendra Modi government accord special status to AP. He said the PCC will intensify the campaign to expose the TDP, which, he said, in its one year rule miserably failed to do anything concretely to mitigate the suffering of people. Most of the promises made by the party in its election manifesto remain unfulfilled, he said.

while some promises like farm loan waiver were implemented partially, he said daring the TDP to make public the poll promises it fulfilled by placing them on the web. Raghuveera released a CD `Jamatha Dasamagraha’ which was originally prepared by late NT Rama Rao expressing his anguish over his dethronement by his son-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu.

Raghuveera said the party had reproduced it to add momentum to its campaign against the Chief Minister and added that the CD along with a booklet carrying excerpts from ‘Manasuloni Mata’ by Chanbdrababu Naidu will be distributed to make the people to know the real colour of Naidu.