Andhra special status: Sitaram Yechury offers support to YSRCP members on hunger strike

New Delhi: CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury today visited Andhra Pradesh Bhavan here and extended his support to YSR Congress Party legislators who have sat on a hunger strike demanding special category status to the state. Yechury’s visit came on the second day of the hunger strike.

Addressing the YSR Congress Party members present there, Yechury said he was not visiting them “to get appreciation. This is our duty and responsibility.” “On the day the bill to bifurcate the state came to Parliament, I asked about sharing of electricity, water and government employees. But there was no answer. (Then) I asked why was it taken up without proper homework,” Yechury said.

He said “nothing has happened”, despite then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh giving an assurance that the special status would be given to Andhra Pradesh for five years and then Rajya Sabha member Venkaiah Naidu promising to extend the status to 10 years if a BJP government comes to power. On the TDP first allying and now moving away from the BJP, Yechury said: “We asked TDP why they were again getting into alliance with BJP after being out of power for 10 years in the united AP following the previous alliance.”

“They said ‘BJP will be at the Centre and we will form government in state. Both will work for special status’ they said. Now we can see where we are standing after four years of alliance,” he said.

The five YSR Congress Party members sitting on the indefinite hunger strike yesterday resigned from Lok Sabha over the “failure” of the Centre to grant the status to Andhra Pradesh.

Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy, 73 and one of the five MPs sitting on the hunger strike, was today taken to RML Hospital after he complained of uneasiness. Earlier today, doctors had examined the leaders and said no medical intervention was required at the moment.