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State polls to decide fate of Andhra capital
The elections will decide whether Andhra will have a single capital as visualised by N Chandrababu Naidu or three capitals as proposed by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy
The elections to the Andhra Pradesh state assembly scheduled to be held on Monday will decide the fate of major political parties – the ruling YSR Congress party led by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) headed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
At the same time, the elections are also crucial in deciding the fate of Andhra capital – whether it will have a single grandiose capital at Amaravati on the banks of Krishna river, as visualised by Naidu or three capitals – executive capital at Visakhapatnam, judicial capital at Kurnool and legislative capital at Amaravati, as proposed by Jagan.
As the matter is now caught in a legal wrangle in the Supreme Court, the people of the state are waiting with bated breath for the outcome of the assembly elections on June 4 to know the fate of their capital city. If Jagan returns to power, it is for sure that he would abandon Amaravati as the only capital and push for three capitals with much more vigour.
He has already made arrangements for shifting his residence and the chief minister’s office to Visakhapatnam. “I shall take oath as the chief minister again at Visakhapatnam after June 4 and begin my administrative operations from there,” Jagan announced at a public rally in Visakhapatnam last week.
But if the TDP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) wrests power from Jagan, Naidu will revive Amaravati capital city project. “I know it is a difficult task to revive the capital city to its original glory. But I am confident of doing it with the support of the Centre,” he said in a recent media interaction.
The people of Amaravati are keeping their fingers crossed over their fate. It is not just about whether a world-class capital city would come up in their area or not, but the future of 28,000-odd farmers, who had given away 34,385 acres of their lands under Land Pooling System (LPS) for the construction of the capital city in 2015.
The farmers surrendered their fertile lands for the capital city, hoping that it would change our fate for good. They were allotted 250-400 square yards of commercial plot, depending on the location, besides 1,000 square yards of residential plots in the capital region, for every acre of land they surrendered to the authority, besides being paid annuity of ₹30,000 to ₹50,000 per acre, depending on whether the land is dry or wet, for a period of 10 years, with 10 per cent enhancement every year.
With the Jagan government completely dumping Amaravati, the entire area turned into a virtual ghost city. Dense bushes have come up on the residential and commercial plots at several layouts. Weeds have grown all around the multi-storeyed official and residential complexes abandoned midway of their construction. The half-built villas of ministers and judges have become a haven for stray dogs. Iron rods meant for construction of these buildings are gathering rust.
The internal roads were dug up at several places, and gravel has come up. Even the 23-km long six-lane seed access road connecting Amaravati to the national highway (NH-16 connecting Chennai to Kolkata), lies in an utter state of neglect with huge pipelines meant for the underground drainage system on either side lay abandoned.
“In the last five years, Amaravati has gone back in development by 20 years. Even if Naidu comes back to power, he cannot restore it in the next five years, unless there is a huge help from the Centre,” said C Ganesh, a farmer from Thullur, the epicentre of agitation by Amaravati farmers. “If Jagan comes back to power, we have no option but to migrate to other parts of the state or even to Telangana,” he said.
Another farmer Gadde Surendra Babu, whose family gave away 23 acres of land for the capital city, is sceptical about the outcome of the elections. “Who knows Jagan might come back to power. If that happens, we have to give up hope on our future. Amaravati is gone,” he said.
B Appa Rao of Tadikonda, however, has not lost hope. “We are vigorously campaigning among the people that this is the golden opportunity to see that Amaravati capital city becomes a reality. If we lose this opportunity, we are lost forever,” he said.
NO ENTHUSIASM IN VISAKHAPATNAM
On the other hand, people of Visakhapatnam are not very enthusiastic about the city becoming an administrative capital of Andhra Pradesh; as such, it has not become an election issue for them.
“We have never asked for Visakhapatnam to be developed as a capital city. So, we neither want it to happen nor would we get disappointed if it doesn’t become a capital city,” B Satyanarayana, a retired central government employee.
Many people are apprehensive that Visakhapatnam would turn chaotic if it becomes a capital city. “In the last five years, we have seen how politicians from different parts of the state, particularly from Nellore and Rayalaseema, encroached the lands in Visakhapatnam. If it becomes a capital city, there will be no land left for the common man,” said Yugandhar Reddy, a former journalist of a vernacular daily.
He said the talk of executive capital has jacked up the value of lands and residential apartments, as a result of which the cost of living of the common man has gone up abnormally. “We generally prefer leisure and quiet life. We don’t want to see the hustle-bustle of the capital city,” Reddy said.
The YSRC reiterated in its election manifesto released on April 26 that Visakhapatnam will be developed as the world class executive capital city of Andhra Pradesh. “Visakhapatnam is a growth engine and it can be developed on par with Hyderabad or Mumbai or Chennai in a short time,” Jagan said at a rally in Visakhapatnam on May 7.
NO EUPHORIA IN JUDICIAL CAPITAL
In Kurnool city of backward Rayalaseema region, which Jagan proposed to develop as judicial capital, it is absolutely a non-issue in the present elections.
“We still don’t understand what additional benefits we would get if Kurnool becomes a judicial capital. Nobody is able to explain to us how it helps in the development of the city,” observed Shivaram Reddy, a local resident of Kurnool town.
According to G Kondappa, reporter of a vernacular daily in Kurnool, nobody is talking about the judicial capital issue in the elections. “Even Jagan did not make any mention of it during his recent election rally in Kurnool. The local YSRCP leaders have not been talking about it all. So, the people, too, are obviously not interested,” he said.
