Opposition steps up battle to retain Amaravati as single capital of AP

HYDERABAD: Opposition parties in Andhra Pradesh are preparing to offer further fillip to a farmers’ agitation against the state government’s plan for three capitals and are demanding that Amaravati be retained as the single capital.
The agitation by thousands of farmers in 29 villages who had given their land to the development of Amaravati as the capital city has reached 200 days. Many NRIs of Andhra origin have also expressed their solidarity with the villagers.

Months after coming to power in May last year, the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-headed YSR Congress government had decided to scrap the greenfield capital city project initiated by the previous Chandrababu Naidu regime at Amaravati and go in for three capitals for decentralised growth and administration.

Farmers who had surrendered around 34,000 acres of their farmlands for the city are also waging a legal battle against the current government’s decision. Naidu’s TDP, which lost power in 2019, has been striving to stall the moves of the YSR Congress government to get the bills passed in the legislative council on trifurcating the capital in place of having a unified capital at Amaravati.

Of late, the BJP also joined the opposition forces against the three-capital proposal of the Reddy government and is insisting that Amaravati be retained as the single capital.

On the occasion of the 200th day of the farmers’ protest on Saturday, BJP Andhra president Kanna Lakshmi Narayana extended his party’s solidarity to them.