Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel has hit out at Narendra Modi over Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu claiming that despite reaching out to the Prime Minister to discuss the issue of special status to Andhra Pradesh, he was not given any time.


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Calling it unfortunate, the Congress leader said that the Prime Minister’s move “does not augur well for the interest of the people of Andhra Pradesh”.


“It is very unfortunate that the Prime Minister couldn’t take the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s phone call on such an important matter. This doesn’t augur well for the interest of the people of Andhra Pradesh,” said Patel.


Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, the TDP chief had said that he did try to reach out to PM Modi to inform him of his party’s decision to pull out ministers of the Union Cabinet, but the Prime Minister had been unavailable.


Naidu said that while the TDP would continue to be a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the party would pull out its ministers from the Union Cabinet over the demand for special status to Andhra Pradesh.


Naidu made the announcement in a press conference late on Wednesday night from his state's new capital, Amaravati. He said the TDP's two ministers in the NDA government -  Ashok Gajapathi Raju and YS Chowdary - would resign on Thursday morning.


"They (ministers) will resign in the morning. What will happen after that, we will see to that later," he said.


"This is our right. The Centre is not fulfilling the promises it made. We have shown patience for four years. I tried to convince the Centre by all means," Naidu said, adding, "The reason we joined the BJP as part of the Central government has not been served. That is the reason we are pulling out of the government."