Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu on Sunday said the Telugu Desam Party will find a way to meet its demand for special status to Andhra Pradesh.
In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times’ Kumkum Chaddha, Kinjarapu spoke on a variety of issues, including National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally Bharatiya Janata Party’s bid to end reservation for minorities, his relationship with the BJP, etc.
‘Special status to Andhra should not be the centre of all demands’
On the issue of special status to bifurcated Andhra Pradesh, the TDP leader said, “More work has to be done for the development of the state. If you are insisting on one thing, you are belittling these demands. I don’t want this to happen. For me, the railway zone is a more important thing because I come from the North Andhra region.”
“We the people of Andhra Pradesh don’t have a capital. We consider Amaravati as an important demand. I have to press for this too. We are pushing for Polavaram, which is a national project. There has been no progress in this in the last five years. When you raise one thing, it is political thinking,” Kinjarapu, who won from Srikakulam for the third time, said.
Also read: TDP’s Nara Lokesh talks about Modi 3.0, Agniveer and support for special status to Andhra
How important is special status for Andhra Pradesh?
“In the initial five years of the division, we had some support from the NDA government. We had the leadership of Chandrababu Naidu in the state. We took the state forward to a certain level. We felt that if we had got more support from the NDA government, we could have achieved more success,” the Union minister said.
Kinjarapu, whose party TDP along with alliance partners BJP and Jana Sena defeated Jagan Reddy’s YSRCP in the Andhra assembly elections, said, “At that time we were more ambitious. The state was just divided, we were insulted and we had the ‘josh’ to show what our state is about. In 2019, we lost and Jagan came to power. For five years, he ruined the state. Jagan made his own constitution and roads. He made the state like his bank account. He could do anything he wanted.”
He said, “After assessing Jagan’s five-year rule, we have gone back 30 years. Imagine a state that was trying to rebuild itself and achieve great things, with five years of rule of a madman, it went back 30 years.”
‘We stand with the minorities’
The BJP had attacked the governments of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka for providing reservation on religious lines. When asked about quota for Muslims, Kinjarapu said, “We have not talked about it at all. Our leader Chandrababu Naidu has firmly said that there will be no change in the situation as it is today. We stand with the minorities and their rights.”
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