TDP MPs protest outside Parliament for special status to Andhra

New Delhi: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Members of Parliament on Thursday staged a protest outside the Parliament House, demanding 'special category status' for Andhra Pradesh.

As a part of the protest, scores of TDP leaders were seen walking with placards and festoons through the streets displaying various reasons and factors as to why Andhra should be given a special status.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led NDA government at the Centre and the TDP have been at loggerheads for the past couple of months over the issue.

The demand to bring Andhra Pradesh under the Special Category gained momentum after the region split into two states.

Telangana, which is India's youngest state, was carved out of Andhra in 2014. Andhra Pradesh's capital Hyderabad, also a rising IT hub with the majority of jobs, was also shifted to Telangana.

At present, as many as 11 states-Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Mizoram-have been granted financial aid under this category as a majority of these regions have hilly-terrain and have a considerable tribal population.

The responsibility of allocating the funds to special and general category states which is based on Madhav Gadgil-Pranab Mukherjee (1969) formula is on the shoulders of the Central government.