Andhra Pradesh needs Narendra Modi: Jagan Reddy

New Delhi: Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, chief of the YSR Congress, met the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to seek his support for Andhra Pradesh as the state awaiting bifurcation emerged as an important issue on the prime minister-designate’s agenda on Monday.

Andhra Pradesh is to be bifurcated on 2 June for the creation of Telangana as India’s 29th state.

The remainder of what is now Andhra Pradesh will be known as Seemandhra.

“Narendra Modi doesn’t need our support, we need him,” said Jaganmohan Reddy, whose party is from the Seemandhra region.

“Andhra Pradesh needs him, we expect a great deal of help. We expect that the new Prime Minister will be proactive. I explained to Narendra Modi the way Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated by the Congress, if I can use the word, cruelly,” said the YSR Congress chief.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu, the BJP’s pre-poll ally from Seemandhra, is scheduled to meet the Prime Minister-in-waiting on Tuesday after a meeting of the BJP’s parliamentary party.

The BJP, which won a simple majority in the 16th general elections with 282 seats in the Lok Sabha, will meet to choose Modi as the leader of its parliamentary party.

Also on Monday, BJP chief Rajnath Singh and Modi both spoke to K. Chandrasekhar Rao, chief of Telangana Rashtra Samithi and likely chief minister of Telangana state, to invite him to Modi’s swearing-in ceremony.

Another southern political leader to call on Modi on Monday was Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) general secretary Vaiko.

Apart from political leaders, top bureaucrats, including home secretary Anil Goswami, met Modi to brief him about internal security issues. Former director of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Ajit Doval also met both Modi and Rajnath Singh during the day.