Ten years after the bifurcation of the erstwhile unified Andhra Pradesh, all three key parties of the state – the TDP, YSRCP, and the Jana Sena – seem to have given the demand for Special Category Status a quiet burial.

While none of the regional parties deemed it fit to raise the demand in the run-up to the elections, the Congress with a marginal presence in Andhra politics raised the issue.

The TDP, which had quit the NDA in 2018 over its refusal to grant SCS to Andhra Pradesh, has now joined the NDA bandwagon but chose not to raise the contentious issue during its first joint rally at Palnadu. The party seems to have decided not to burn its fingers on the matter again.

TDP President and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who shared the dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday didn’t even mention it in his speech. He was content with touching upon the misgovernance, poor financial health of the state, and the issue of capital.

Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan too avoided any reference to the issue in his speech in the presence of the prime minister. It’s the same Pawan Kalyan who in 2016 described the special package accorded to AP by the Modi Government instead of SCS as “rotten laddu”.

He had even asked then-Andhra MPs to resign to fight for the cause of SCS for Andhra Pradesh. While the joint manifesto of the tripartite alliance is yet to be released, SCS is unlikely to feature in it.

While these two parties have maintained a diplomatic silence over the issue as they desperately need the BJP on their side to fight the YSRCP in the upcoming parliamentary and assembly elections, the ruling party also doesn’t seem to have made up its mind raise the issue which has is akin to flogging a dead horse.

YSRCP supremo YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had won the elections in 2019 on the SCS plank, but once in office, he held his tongue, ostensibly because of BJP’s strength in the Lok Sabha and running a government teetering at the point of bankruptcy required him to keep the BJP and the prime minister in good humour.

Although the demand for SCS was included in every memorandum submitted to PM Modi during the chief minister’s visit to Delhi, it should be passed off as a mere lip service to the cause. Last week while addressing his last Siddham (ready) rally at Bapatla, Jagan posed a query to the audience about the SCS but there was not much fizz.

Ironically, when the Rajya Sabha passed the AP Reorganisation Bill, it was BJP veteran Venkaiah Naidu with the support of his late colleague Arun Jaitley arm-twisted the ruling UPA into conceding the SCS to the reorganised state of AP. But the joy proved short-lived with the NDA Government under Narendra Modi reneging from its promise.

After two elections fought on the issue, the three parties with their origins in Andhra Pradesh seemed to be willing to let the sleeping dogs lie.