YSR Congress party leader Jagan Mohan Reddy will be sworn-in as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh on May 30, 2019 in Vijayawada.
Jagan’s party had won 151 of 175 Assembly seats and 22 Lok Sabha seats out of 25 in Andhra Pradesh.
He defeated incumbent CM Chandra Babu Naidu of Telugu Desam Party.
He met PM Modi and requested him to accord Andhra Pradesh “Special Category Status”.
Special Category Status (SCS)
The concept of SCS was first introduced in 1969 by the 5th Finance Commission.
It sought to provide certain disadvantaged states preferential treatment in the form of central assistance and tax breaks.
Initially, 3 states only Assam, Nagaland and Jammu & Kashmir were granted SCS.
Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand were later added.
But the 14th Finance Commission scrapped the ‘special category’ status for states, except for the North Eastern and three hill states (J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand).
Instead, it recommended increased “tax devolution” from Union to States from 32% to 42%.