Bengaluru: Defending the aggressive marketing of his state to would-be investors, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said on Monday that he had no choice as he was “nurturing a newborn baby” and had to make sure it was not “malnourished”.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event organised by the Karnataka agriculture marketing department in Bengaluru, he denied he was indulging in unhealthy competition with his neighbours for industrial investment.
The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister was put on the defensive as Karnataka recently lost the Hero Motors unit in Dharwad to his state and nearly lost some units of IT major, Infosys, which is on an expansion drive, to it as well .
Reacting to Andhra Pradesh’s high sales pitch, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had asserted recently that neither Andhra Pradesh nor Telangana could compete with Karnataka and also protested against the Modi government giving special incentives like waiver of Central excise taxes to newly carved states , saying it would lead to unhealthy competition.
But an unfazed Mr Naidu claimed that all he wanted was cooperation. “Competition is not an issue here. I want to learn. I have a new state and I need to nurture this newborn baby to see that it doesn’t get malnourished. Yes, there are some incentives. I have requested neighbouring states to cooperate. After a while things will settle down. But as of now, this is the reality,” he added.
