Opposition calls for state-wide bandh in A

“I have sought Prime Minister’s appointment”.

BMK Munikoti, who attempted self-immolation at a Congress rally in Tirupati on Saturday demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh, succumbed to severe burns at the KMC Hospital in Chennai on Sunday. Speaking to PTI at the dharna site, the YSRCP leader recalled the recent allegations of attempts to buy out MLAs in Telangana. Jaganmohan Reddy and other leaders including MPs and state legislators later staged a sit-in at Parliament Street police station to lodge their protest over the use of force by police.

The Congress has given a call for Tirupati bandh on Monday as “mark of respect to the sacrifice of Koti for the cause of Andhra Pradesh”. In Guntur, the district bar association has decided to boycott work on Tuesday in support of the special status demand.

It was shameful that the ruling TDP, which shares power with BJP at the Centre and the state, was silent on the demand for special status, he said. Stating that their families and the society needs them the most, he made an appeal to the people to not resort to any such drastic steps. “In reply to a question raised in the Lok Sabha by our party, the government has said that there is no proposal to scrape the special status to northeastern states. How it is fair now that after the division, these people back out?” he said. “Chandrababu Naidu, BJP, everybody is to be blamed here on this”, he said when asked if he was ready to rise over his political adversaries with TDP on the issue.

Jagan wondered why the special status can’t be given to Andhra Pradesh when northeastern states continued to enjoy the same.

“Im confident that the Centre will grant special status to our state”.

Rubbishing the claims of the Centre, Jagan said the issue of special category status was not within the purview of the Finance Commission. The Union Government is not looking into the matters related to the division.