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PM Narendra Modi speaks to Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu over 'special status' row

This comes a day after the Chief Minister directed two Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ministers - Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Y S Chowdary to resign from the Union Cabinet.

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PM Narendra Modi, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu (R)
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Amid the ongoing political tiff between the Centre and Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday spoke to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu.

This comes a day after the Chief Minister directed two Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ministers - Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Y S Chowdary to resign from the Union Cabinet.

Meanwhile, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Y S Chowdary will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 6 pm today.

Naidu asked his party members to resign from the Union Cabinet after the Centre allegedly neglected their demands including ''special status'' to the state.

The BJP and its Andhra ally TDP have been sharing a sour relationship following the announcement of the Union Budget 2018-19.

While the latter has been alleging that the Centre neglected the state in the budget, the BJP rejected the charges and said that the Centre not only fulfilled all its obligations, but also went out of its way to help the state.

Naidu on Thursday lashed out at Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over granting special status to the state and questioned why the Centre was discriminating with Andhra while holding hand of North-Eastern states.

The two TDP ministers in the Modi government - Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Minister of State for Science and Technology Y S Chowdary have resigned from their post.

In a tit-for-tat action, the two BJP ministers in the Naidu government--K Srinivasa Rao and T Manikyala Rao--too quit their posts.

The TDP decided to pull out of the NDA government but kept the door for ties with BJP ajar.

Addressing the state assembly, Naidu said, "Our ministers in the Central cabinet and BJP ministers in our cabinet have resigned. However, these ministers worked good in the state. They brought considerable reforms in their departments. I thank them for their services."

Stating that what Arun Jaitley spoke yesterday' is not good', Naidu added, "You are holding a hand of the North Eastern states but not of Andhra Pradesh. You are giving industrial incentives to them, not to Andhra Pradesh. Why this discrimination?."

On Wednesday, Jaitley had said that giving special category status, as demanded by Naidu, to any state apart from those in the North-East and three hill provinces was not constitutionally possible after the implementation of the 14th Finance Commission recommendations. For special category status states, the Centre meets 90% of the funds required in a centrally sponsored scheme as against 60 percent in case of normal category states. The remaining funds are provided by the state governments. The TDP has 16 MPs in the Lok Sabha.

On Wednesday, in a series of tweets, the chief minister said he tried to speak to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over phone 'as a courtesy' to inform him about the decision to pull out of the NDA government. "It is my responsibility as a coalition partner to inform the prime minister about our party decision. My OSD spoke to his OSD but the prime minister did not come on line, he said.

(With ANI inputs)

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