Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu has said that Amaravati would be the sole capital of Andhra Pradesh. The announcement comes a day before Naidu's swearing-in as the chief minister of the state.
He said this while addressing a joint meeting of TDP, BJP and Jana Sena legislators, where he was unanimously elected as NDA leader in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly.
“In our government, there will be no games under the guise of three capitals. Our capital is Amaravati. Amaravati is the capital,” Naidu was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
In 2014, when Andhra Pradesh was divided, Naidu had big plans for Amaravati. He had floated the idea of Amaravati as the capital city during his tenure as the first chief minister of bifurcated Andhra Pradesh between 2014 and 2019.
The idea, however, witnessed a roadblock in the year 2019 when TDP lost power in the state and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSRCP won a landslide victory.
Reddy's government, after coming to power, questioned Amaravati's feasibility and financial prudence and proposed a three-capital plan. This plan was drawn to decentralise the administration, with Amaravati as the legislative capital, Visakhapatnam as the executive capital, and Kurnool as the judicial capital.
That has now been replaced with the Naidu's decision to have a single capital.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the state, the NDA alliance of TDP, BJP and Jana Sena won a landslide victory with a brute majority of 164 assembly and 21 Lok Sabha seats.
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