The Party has declared that it will fight till the end to get the NDA government to fulfill all the assurances made to Andhra Pradesh at the time of bifurcation.
The Congress seems to be fishing in troubled waters to regain lost ground in Andhra Pradesh, which was once its citadel but where it is now totally decimated.
This is what seems to be coming out from the events both within and outside Parliament during the last two days when Congress leaders, after maintaining a stoic silence for the past two years, suddenly decided to champion the cause for Special Status for the State.
While the Party members in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha created a ruckus over the issue on Tuesday, senior leaders including AICC President Sonia Gandhi, AICC Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and others at a meeting outside Parliament on Wednesday vowed to wage a relentless war against the BJP-led NDA government till the Special Category Status and other assurances made by the then UPA Government in Rajya Sabha were implemented.
Led by its chief N Raghuveera Reddy, the APCC, too, launched a signature campaign towards this end. After collecting one crore signatures, the Party organized a meeting on Wednesday in the national capital to hand over the memorandum with the signatures to the central Party leaders for submitting the same to the President and the Prime Minister of India.
Former Congress union minister and film actor Chiranjeevi even collected the signatures of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh on the memorandum.
Speaking on the occasion, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi reminded the NDA government of the assurances made by the then Congress-led UPA government to the people of the Andhra region of according Special Category Status to the residual State after the bifurcation. They declared that the Congress would fight till the end to get the NDA government to fulfill all the assurances made at the time of bifurcation.
The Congress members indulged in heated arguments with the BJP members in both the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday, pushing the latter to the wall. However, though Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu said that the Centre was committed to fulfilling all the assurances made in the past during the passage of the Bill for the creation of a separate Telangana, they did not categorically make any promise to grant Special Status to AP.
What is amusing is that the Congress, which is responsible was creating the prevailing mess, is now trying to target the BJP over the issue, showing how the situation has evolved over the past two years. There is no denial of the fact that it was the Congress, which was heading the then UPA government, that had cleared the decks for the formation of Telangana. However all the electoral calculations of the Congress went haywire as the people of Telangana handed over power over the new State to the TRS. And the people of the Seemandhra region expectedly voted out the Congress with a vengeance - the Congress was completely wiped out from AP in the 2014 elections.
With the BJP at the helm of affairs at the Centre and the TDP being its ally, the people of AP expected Special Category Status quickly. However, after two years now, it appears a distant dream for the people, who are now starting to turn restless with each passing day. Naidu has been put in a piquant situation in this regard and has become a target of attack by his adversaries, especially the main Oppositon YSR Congress Party led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.
Meanwhile the honeymooning between the TDP and the BJP in the State has also begun to turn sour, and the latter is reportedly even considering breaking its ties with its ally and go it alone in the next elections. The YSR Congress Party also began pushing the TDP to the wall on the Special Status issue.
All these developments appear to have made the Congress, which has been waiting for an opportunity to bounce back in AP, decide to seize the chance by capitalizing on the burning issue.
Thus the Congress leaders within and outside Parliament seem to be championing the Special Status cause to impress upon the people of the State that it is they who can fulfill their aspirations as the TDP leadership has let them down badly in this regard.