AP Congress to meet President, PM over special category status to state

Stepping up its agitation over special category status to Andhra Pradesh, the state Congress on Friday said it would meet President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top leaders in Delhi.

As per the 'Chalo Delhi' programme, Congress leaders and activists would leave for Delhi on Saturday morning from Visakhapatnam in AP Express train, AP Congress President N Raghuveera Reddy said.

They would stay in Delhi on March 14, 15 and 16 and meet President, Prime Minister, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and also former prime minister Manmohan Singh, he said.

The AP Congress delegation would hand over the one crore signatures collected by the party in support of the demands to the Prime Minister, Reddy said, adding that Congress would try to mobilise support of other parties in the efforts.

It is high time the NDA government fulfilled the promises made to Seemandhra (new Andhra Pradesh), including special category status, completing the multi-purpose Polavaram irrigation project, provision of funds for building the state's capital city among others, he said.

The promise of special category status was made on the floor of Parliament by then prime minister Manmohan Singh when the bill for formation of Telangana was passed in 2014.

AP Congress has undertaken campaigns like collection of one crore signatures, sending one crore SMSes to Union Ministers from AP and filing "police cases" against top leaders of TDP-BJP alliance for allegedly betraying the people by not implementing its promises.