AP to drag Center to court for bifurcation issues

The Andhra Pradesh state cabinet that met at Amaravati on Friday, has decided to take legal recourse against non-fulfilment of assurances given to the state at the time of bifurcation in 2014.

The government also decided to file a counter to the affidavit filed by the Union government on Wednesday, ruling out granting special category status (SCS) to the state as a special package had been given in lieu of SCS.

This is the second rude shock to the state as earlier, the union steel ministry in an affidavit told the Supreme Court that the bifurcation Act has only asked the incumbent government to look at the feasibility of setting up a steel factory in Kadapa. The relevant task force has given a negative report, it said.

Thereafter, largescale agitations erupted in Kadapa. TDP MP C M Ramesh sat on a hunger strike for 10 days.

The cabinet headed by Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu decided to move court after each department reviewed the commitments in the 2014 bifurcation Act and by the Narendra Modi government. Prominent among them are special railway zone in Visakhapatnam, Polavaram project, construction of Amaravati, steel plant in the backward region of Kadapa, Duggarajapatnam Port and Amaravati-Anantapur express highway.

Centre firm

The state government said the Centre had failed to fulfil all the major promises, including plugging the estimated revenue deficit of over Rs 22,113 crore. “The final shape of the proposed legal remedy will be known only after discussion with legal luminaries," a minister said.

The Centre, however, in its recent affidavit washed its hands off Andhra Pradesh saying almost all the promises made in the Act have been fulfilled and there is nothing much left to do. The ruling Telugu Desam Party is arguing that trouble started only after the party severed ties with the BJP at the national and state level. The party alleges that the union ministers and the prime minister are not giving audience to any minister from AP.