It has been a well proven fact that special category status can only be announced by union government and the ruling and opposition parties of AP can do nothing except to agitate for the special status.
As we know, the BJP led union government turn down the appeals of the AP's opposition parties and the people for announcing the special status, it appears special remains to be a dream for AP people at the moment.
Fortunately, the Congress party happens to be quite in favour of declaring special status to the AP. It's also being predicted that the Congress would assume the power at the center in 2019. The BJP government's anti democratic decisions such as implementing demonetization, levying high taxes and insisting the people to prefer cashless transfers paying service taxes etc may lead the party losing the election battle in 2019. Although the Congress party is quite positive for AP's special status, it has to be supported by the MPs of political parties like Janasena, YSR CP etc. If all goes well, AP may get special status in mid 2019.