Express News Service By

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday called AP a ‘third class’ State and advised it to desist from comparing itself with Telangana but in the same breath, he made it clear that ‘Andhra’ journalists working in the State will never be discriminated against.

Speaking at an interactive session with journalists at the TS Press Academy, whose nomenclature was changed to the Media Academy of TS, Rao expressed his displeasure with the AP government for hyphenating itself with Telangana on every issue. “AP has fallen in a pit by constantly comparing itself with Telangana. Financially, Telangana is in a better position than AP,” he said, adding “if at all Telangana has to be measured, it must be against Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala... definitely not AP.”

Explaining further, he pointed out, “The urban population of TS stands at 40.6% while that of AP has fallen to 22.5. TS GDP is more than the national average. That was why we announced 43% fitment to employees. AP followed suit but the burden on it is over `10,000 crore. I heard it is looking for loans to pay Feb salaries.” On curbs on media at the Secretariat, he said that would be decided later. However, he said he was pained to see negative stories in a section of the media. “It’s okay if there is 80% truth and the remaining gossip. But, one or two media houses are targeting the government. If media has the right to question, the government too has the same right,” he said, adding it would be irritating to see gossip daily.

“When I read a story on metro rail, my blood boiled. These are against the State’s interest,” he said.