Ending its four-year-old alliance with the BJP, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) today pulled out of the NDA over the Centre's refusal to grant Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh and simultaneously moved a no-trust motion in Parliament.
TDP president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu made the announcement to exit the BJP-led alliance in Amaravati, eight days after two of its union ministers--P Ashok Gajapati Raju and Y S Chowdary-- quit on March 8 following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The YSR Congress--a regional party in AP-- also moved a no-confidence motion against the Modi government.
The BJP termed TDP's decision as "inevitable".
Naidu later told reporters he was fighting a "dharma yuddh"(righteous war) to secure the state's 'legitimate' rights and claimed that parties at the national level were backing the TDP's no-confidence motion due to his party's credibility.
Naidu also came down heavily on the prime minister saying that Modi did not even bother to invite the TDP MPs for a discussion when they were agitating in Parliament for the state's rights.
He said Modi showed a lot of concern for Andhra Pradesh on the eve of 2014 elections and promised many things, including building the state's new capital better than New Delhi.
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The chief minister wanted to know what happened to all those promises.
"We joined the NDA in the first place only to protect our state's interests in the aftermath of bifurcation. We waited for four years with the hope that the Centre will honour all the promises but it only meted out injustice to us, Naidu said.
However, the BJP never cared about TDP, he charged adding while in the opposition, it promised to take care of the state and its needs but once in power, "it completely ignored us."
The union government exuded confidence that it has the numbers in the Lok Sabha to defeat the no-trust motion