BJP MP G.V.L. Narasimha Rao wrote a letter to Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Monday, urging him to issue a statement on the reasons for exclusion of four items, including revenue gap and Special Category Status (SCS) from the revised agenda of the Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) - Telangana dispute resolution sub-committee meeting scheduled for February 17, and to constitute a separate committee to examine and recommend practical ways to discuss those items.
Mr. Narasimha Rao stated that the original agenda of the meeting of the sub-committee, which was set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) to sort out pending issues related to the two States contained nine items consisting of revenue gap and SCS, which are related only to A.P. Subsequently, the meeting agenda was revised and it did not have issues concerning A.P.
The revision of the agenda was necessary as otherwise the inclusion of issues like SCS and revenue gap for A.P. mean that all of them would be permanently clubbed and hyphenated with Telangana as “disputed issues’‘.
This would have permanently harmed the interests of A.P. by increasing the scope of State’s disputes with Telangana.
The MP said propaganda-hungry parties like the YSR Congress Party, the TDP and the CPI(M) did not recognise this huge risk either deliberately or naively and criticised MoHA’s decision to revise the meeting agenda. Besides, the revision caused confusion and disappointment among the people of A.P., that some issues concerning the State would not be discussed at all by the Central government.
