Congress MPs meet union ministers seeking special status for Andhra Pradesh
New Delhi: A delegation of five Congress Rajya Sabha MPs from Andhra Pradesh met union ministers on Friday demanding special status for the state and fast implementation of assurances relating to infrastructure made in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.
The meetings come in the light of a letter written by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking assistance to Seemandhra, Congress MP K V P Ramachandra Rao said.
According to him, the delegation met about ten ministers in the last two days, deliberating on a series of issues pertaining to the respective ministries.
"We met ministers of Tribal Welfare, Agriculture, Civil Aviation, Railways yesterday and today we called on three ministers such as Nirmala Sitharaman, Venkaiah Naidu, Uma Bharti and Ravi Shankar Prasad," he said.
Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman today tweeted: "Delegation of Hon'ble MPs from Andhra Pradesh met with demand to accord special status to the state."
Pointing out that they had raised various issues with the respective ministers, Ramachandra Rao said "we discussed about establishing a Tribal University in Andhra Pradesh as per the AP Reorganisation Act with the Tribal Affairs Minister."
"We also discussed about rehabilitation of tribals who would be uprooted for the purpose of Polavaram Multi-Purpose Irrigation Project", he stated.
The AP Reorganisation Act states that the Centre shall take steps to establish institutions of national importance such as IIT, NIT, IIM, IISER, central university, Petroleum University, Agricultural University and IIIT in Andhra Pradesh.
It has also assured a series of infrastructural facilities such as developing a new major port and examine the feasibility of expanding Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati airports to international standards.
Former Union Minister J D Seelam, who was part of the delegation, said Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president N Raghuveera Reddy also accompanied the MPs.
