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Amaravati: BJP to take out foot march on farmers’ issues
The padayatra, under the banner of ‘Manam-Mana Amaravati’ (We, our Amaravati), will commence at Vundavalli of Tadepall Mandal, the starting point of Amaravati on Friday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party will take up a week-long padayatra (foot march), from Friday, across Andhra Pradesh’s capital area of Amaravati to extend solidarity with the farmers, who have been fighting for over two-and-a-half years seeking the capital city in their region.
“The padayatra, being taken out by the BJP leaders essentially from Guntur parliamentary constituency, is aimed at understanding the problems being faced by the farmers who had given away their lands for the capital and extending support to their struggle,” BJP state general secretary S Vishnu Vardhan Reddy said on Thursday.
The padayatra, under the banner of ‘Manam-Mana Amaravati’ (We, our Amaravati), will commence at Vundavalli of Tadepall Mandal, the starting point of Amaravati on Friday.
“On the first day, senior state-level leaders like BJP state president Somu Veerraju, former president Kanna Lakshminarayana and others will participate,” Reddy said.
The party leaders will walk for 75 km, covering 29 villages that are part of capital region. The padayatra will culminate in a public meeting at Thullur village on August 4, where top leaders of the party will address the farmers and locals.
During the padayatra, the BJP leaders will also inspect the developmental works taken up during the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime and discontinued after the YSR Congress Party led by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy came to power in May 2019. The works have been resumed in the recent months, after the high court judgement of March 3, as the court has set a six-month deadline to complete the pending works.
Another senior BJP leader from Guntur, Patibandla Ramakrishna said during the padayatra, the BJP leaders will obtain the feedback of the people of the capital region on their struggle for retention of the capital city at Amaravati. “We will send this feedback to our party’s national leadership,”Ramakrishna said.
Earlier, the TDP had been championing the cause of Amaravati farmers and supporting them to fight the Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s decision to abandon the capital city project and form three capital cities for the state – executive capital at Visakhapatnam, judicial capital at Kurnool and legislative capital at Amaravati.
During their agitation, the BJP had not taken any stand on Amaravati capital region, though some leaders like Kanna Lakshminarayana did support the farmers.
It was only in November 2021, when Union home minister Amit Shah came to Tirupati to chair the southern zonal council meeting and directed the BJP leaders to support the Amaravati farmers that the local BJP leaders came out with a clear stand in favour of Amaravati capital.
In the same month, they took part in the maha padayatra taken out by Amaravati farmers from Thullur to Tirupati demanding that the Jagan government withdraw its three capitals’ plan.
After a two-year-long legal battle, the farmers got a favourable judgement from the high court in March this year, with the court declaring that Amaravati will remain the only capital of the state and that the government has no competence to change the same.
