No Special Status, Minister dismissive of Rahul's letter

The Congress-led Manmohan Singh Ministry had famously included the Special Status for Andhra Pradesh while announcing the Separate Telangana State in the AP Regoranisation Bill. Now it appears the special status is not worth the paper on which it was written by the Congress. Central Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh made it amply clear on Monday that Special Status for the post-split Andhra Pradesh was not possible. Instead the Centre would ask the NITI Ayog to go into the issue of fund allocations to AP to tide over the problems and aid otherwise. Niti Ayog was currently studying the issue. Rao Inderjit Singh was replying to a letter seeking Special Status for Andhra Pradesh written by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi was out of the loop that split the combined AP. So his writing a letter seeking Special Status for AP is curious. If the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, had written such a letter, the people of the State would have been happier, at least because the Congress would seen to be sincere in the matter. If all the Congress MPs were to write a letter to the Prime Minister on the necessity of Special Status for AP after cutting the Gordion knot by the Manmohan Singh government amidst stiff opposition by its own party MPs, it would be in fitness of things. If the Reorganisation Bill is valid, by the same token the Special Status also should be followed. If the Congress seeks to argue in such terms, there might be some credibility. Just writing a letter by one Congress MP when the whole House and the entire Manmohan government had taken the decision, despite stiff opposition, may not serve any purpose. Rao Inderjit also replied to the letter like he answers any parliamentary question. The Congress might regain its credibility by forging ahead with the issue in and outside of Parliament in full steam. After all it is the people of Andhra Pradesh who had maintained the Congress in the State and at the Centre.