The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu took strong opposition to the Fifteenth Finance Commission's (FFC) Terms of Reference (ToR) and claimed that progressive states would lose heavily if the 2011 census data was taken as the basis for disbursing tax revenues among states. He also demanded that the Centre respect the cooperative federal system. Further, he asserted “It is not right to penalise states that are in the forefront in population control. We will not tolerate this injustice. We will fight till justice is secured.”
Pointing out that Kerala was leading in the country in terms of population control, Naidu said Andhra Pradesh too has adopted firm measures to control over their rate of population growth. He said “but now, population control is not our policy. Our ultimate objective is poverty eradication and we have accordingly been implementing various schemes.”
The Chief Minister also apprehended that south Indian states would lose seats (in legislatures) if delimitation of constituencies was undertaken based on 2011 population. Besides, he noted that South Indian states are under the threat of losing their eminence because they were successful in population control. He maintained that it is not right for the Centre to penalise such states.