Raucous protests by the ruling alliance member Telugu Desham Party (TDP) and arch rival YSR Congress caused multiple adjournments and took the edge off the debate on Motion of Thanks to the Presidential address in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

It was a full House through the day with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his senior Cabinet colleagues silently watching the pandemonium by MPs from Andhra Pradesh, who held placards, musical instruments and even wore jingling anklets to add to their protests against what they called “step-motherly treatment” to their State in the Union Budget.

They were also demanding a special package for Andhra Pradesh. Congress leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and others, too, sat through the chaos, while the Speaker Sumitra Mahajan was continually urging the MPs to go back to their seats.

State ignored

The TDP, the BJP’s biggest ally in the South, is “disappointed” that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget did not address the State’s needs. There were around 10 members from TDP and YSR Congress in the Well through the day. Earlier this week, the TDP had vowed to continue to press the Centre for various allocations to Andhra Pradesh.

Urging the MPs to allow discussion on the motion of thanks, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ananth Kumar, said: “Their [MPs] demands are very sensitive. The Prime Minister and the government of India are sensitive about development of Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, the matter they are raising will be looked into.”

Heaping praises

Between adjournments, the debate on the motion of thanks progressed with BJP MPs Rakesh Singh and Prahlad Joshi taking turns to hail what they said were “historical achievements” by the government in just three years against “the decades of Congress misrule”. Prahlad Joshi, the MP from Dharwad (Karnataka) , while carrying forward the ruling party’s political line set by BJP President Amit Shah in the Rajya Sabha to accuse the Congress of “elitism” and hail the ruling party’s “pro-poor” programmes, also focused on his poll-bound home State. “Achche Din will not come for the Congress in Karnataka,” said Joshi.

Upcoming elections to Karnataka also found mention in the veteran Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge’s counter to the BJP during the debate when he said: “Everything is an election-stunt for this government. When Assembly polls were to be held in Gujarat, 200 items were taken out of GST. Now they are taking 300 out from GST because that affects elections in Karnataka. This is a government of jumlas and showmen.” Meanwhile, Joshi, who had seconded the motion of thanks after his party colleague Rakesh Singh moved it and initiated the debate, referred to senior Congress leader P Chidambaram’s jibe at the PM for claiming that selling pakoras is also job creation.

“You [Congress] insulted Modiji who used to sell tea [during his childhood]. Now you are insulting pakora walas .”

Earlier, Joshi’s party colleague Rakesh Singh spoke about the achievements of the government in various fields, particularly in implementing the ‘Swachh Bharat’ (Clean India) campaign.

He said the Congress enjoyed power for nearly six decades, but did not fulfil Gandhi’s vision of clean India which the NDA government realised in just three-and-a--half years.

Jaitley responds

While the Andhra MPs were protesting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in the Rajya Sabha that the Centre would keep all the commitments given to Andhra Pradesh at the time of reorganisation of the State.

Replying to TDP members in the Upper House, Jaitley said an alternative mechanism to release funds under a special package to the state.

“I think a solution by which an amount can be given through an alternative mechanism is being worked out. I have asked the expenditure secretary today to immediately call the finance secretary of Andhra Pradesh to Delhi and work out procedural formalities so that it can be done,” Jaitley said in Rajya Sabha. “That amount will be the same. Let’s be assured that there should not be any difficulty,” he said. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said his ministry is working on the modalities of carving out a separate Railways zone for the State.

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