New Delhi
The Telugu Desam Party’s no-confidence motion against the government was a battle of “morality versus majority”, party president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said on Saturday.

The National Democratic Alliance government on Friday defeated the no-confidence motion after a marathon debate that lasted for nearly 12 hours. When the division was held at 11.10 pm last night, the “ayes” for the no-confidence were 126 and the “noes” 325.

“Yesterday’s no-confidence motion was a battle between our morality and the majority of the BJP,” Naidu told a press conference here, as he thanked the other opposition parties for supporting the Telugu Desam Party’s no-trust vote.

Contesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark in the Lok Sabha that special status cannot be extended to the state “as the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FCC) does not allow it”. The Andhra Pradesh chief minister claimed: “The FFC says it does not have any role in it… don’t drag us into it. It is the government which has to take a call”. He also attacked Union minister Arun Jaitley for “denying special status to Andhra Pradesh and then extending the same to northeastern states”.

Naidu said it was “unwise” on Modi’s part to compare his “able leadership with tainted politicians” during a discussion on the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha on Saturday.

On the prime minister terming Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao more mature than Naidu, the Andhra Pradesh chief minister said: “I am senior to the prime minister himself. How can he say that?” He said neither Modi nor Home Minister Rajnath Singh tried to find a solution to the problems between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. “You humiliate us. This is wrong,” Naidu said.

Referring to Modi’s remark that the “Congress killed the mother and saved the child. Had I have been there, I would have saved the mother too”, he said, “We have waited for years for him to do so.”

Asserting that the TDP had joined the NDA in 2014 only to ensure justice to the people of the state, he said: “We are not power hungry. We never aspired for cabinet berths”.