KVP writes to Jaitley, seeks support for Private Bill

Rajya Sabha MP Kvp Ramachandra Rao appealed the BJP to extend its support to the Private Member’s Bill introduced by the latter seeking Special Category Status in the Parliament.

Ramachandra Rao wrote to union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seeking his party’s support to the Bill.

He said that the Bill was similar to the one that was proposed by Venkiah Naidu during the passage of AP Reorganization Bill in February 2014. He reminded the Minister that though the MPs from AP were against the AP Reorganisation Bill, the BJP had supported it.

Meanwhile, APCC chief Raghuveera Reddy wrote to AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu appealing him to extend unconditional support the Private Member’s Bill seeking SCS for Andhra Pradesh to be introduced by Kvp Ramachandra Rao in Parliament on Friday.   He said that it would be in the interest of the state if the MPs cutting across the party lines voted supported the Bill.

Meanwhile, in a related development, the YSR Congress has assured all support to the Bill but questioned the need for such a Bill, when the UPA and the BJP had supported the special category status to AP.

Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, YSR Congress leader Botsa Satynarayana said that the party had always supported for the cause of AP’s interest. He said that the SCS issue was assured along with the merger of some mandals of Telangana in AP but only mandals were merged while the SCS was not addressed. He accused the TD of trying to keep the issue of SCS at bay due to political compulsions. “The TD had been trying to keep the issue at bay, but we will always be in the forefront in the fight to attain special status,” he added.