Hyderabad: The NDA government promotes “competitive cooperative federalism” without discriminating between states on the basis of the party in power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here today.

The Central government has always supported policies in national interest to let states develop and prosper, Modi said.

The prime minister was speaking at a reception organised in his honour by the Telangana unit of the BJP on his arrival at the Begumpet airport here for the inauguration of the first phase of Hyderabad metro rail project.

“Telangana is a newly-created state… I assure the people of Telangana that the BJP government in Delhi will never show any discrimination on the basis of politics,” Modi said.

“Whichever party is in power in the state, we are a party committed to cooperative federalism. Our government is promoting competitive cooperative federalism,” he added.

The Centre, he added, would work shoulder-to-shoulder in the state’s march towards progress.

The Centre would move ahead with the pledge that the fate of Telangana and the country would change only by adopting the path of progress, he said.

Modi, who struck a chord with the BJP activists and supporters by starting his speech in Telugu, said Hyderabad reminds him of Sardar Patel.

“It was the first deputy prime minister who led the merger of the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad with the Indian Union,” he recalled.

“I offer my salutations to Sardar Patel, who merged the princely state of Hyderabad into the Indian Union from this ‘veer bhoomi’. My respects to those who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Telangana. Hyderabad is an amazing city,” he said.

Modi affirmed that the BJP was committed to the development of Telangana.

BJP is what it is today because of the hard work and sacrifices of generations of party workers and their families, he said.

“BJP activists in states like undivided Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu never left the path of hard work and made sacrifices for the party and the country, though the party never had the opportunity to serve people and develop the state by being in power,” Modi said.