Babu’s 16 Much More Powerful Than Jagan’s 22

The bygone YSR Congress government which came to power with one of its main promises being Special Category Status to AP got no consolidated action done on this front. Despite winning 22 MP seats in 2019, YCP confined its efforts solely to occasionally raising the voice in parliament for SCS and that’s about it.

Cut to now, TDP, led by Chandrababu Naidu is getting things done effectively for Andhra Pradesh. This can be understood if we look at the union budget presentation today which has great bearings for Andhra Pradesh.

The most significant allocation made by the center is the allotment of Rs 15,000 crore for the construction of Amaravati through multiple agencies. This will be a significant boost towards the development of social infrastructure in the capital region of Amaravati.

Not just that, there are a handful of other grants to AP as well in this crucial budget session.

Guarantees received by the state in the central budget include:

1. Financial assistance of Rs.15,000 crores for the development of Andhra Pradesh
2. More funds for the completion of Polavaram, the lifeline of the state
3. Special package for Rayalaseema, Prakasam and Uttarandhra districts
4. Development of the Hyderabad-Bangalore Industrial Corridor for industrial development
5. Special assistance to nodes in Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor
6. Development of Kopparthi and Orvakallu Industrial Centres
7. Funding for Kopparthi on Visakha-Chennai Corridor and Orvakallu on Hyderabad-Bangalore Corridor
8. Special funds for water, power, railway, roads projects
9. Enforcement of guarantees contained in the Re-Organization Act
10. Special project for Andhra Pradesh through Purvodaya scheme.

Going by this, it could easily be understood that Chandrababu’s TDP with 16 MP seats and including alliance won 21 seats is far more powerful and multi-fold useful to Andhra Pradesh than YCP which won 22 MP seats in 2019. This can be understood if we look at the fact that the 15,000 crore package for the development of AP capital is the biggest allocation in the last five years.

Naidu placed the interests of the state above all else and didn’t go particularly hard on the cabinet berths allocation recently either. It appears that his aim was always on securing financial packages for reconstruction of AP and this plan is paying Andhra Pradesh richly now.