In Andhra’s capital war, it is Jagan vs Naidu

N Chandrababu Naidu and Jagan Mohan Reddy have been trading charges over Andhra’s capital plan.

When the Manmohan Singh government decided to carve the state of Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh at the fag-end of its tenure in 2014, many were peeved. Chief among them was the former Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu who had modernised Hyderabad and transformed it from the sleepy capital of the Nizam to a modern IT hub.

After the split, Hyderabad, because of its location, went to Telangana, while Naidu went back to a truncated Andhra Pradesh because he came from there.

The 2014 assembly election brought Naidu to power in Andhra, a state without a capital worth its name. Naidu, the creator of the brand Hyderabad and the moderniser of the early 2000s, decided to do an encore in the residuary state.

He zeroed in on a green tract that he called Amaravati in the Guntur district to create new capital. The name Amaravati was aimed at drawing on the state’s Buddhist connection and also because Andhra, facing eastwards, would “look towards” the Buddhist nations of Southeast Asia from where Naidu wanted to attract capital.

But his detractors were not amused because the proposed capital was right in the middle of rich farmlands on the banks of the Krishna river.

Many owners did not complain because they were either absentee landlords or their concerns were addressed by the Naidu government which assures them that they would gain from an increase in land prices once Amaravati was fully developed.

The 3-capital plan

In 2019, Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party lost the election to the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party. The son of former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy who didn’t saw eye to eye with Naidu, Jagan inherited his father’s dislike of the former CM.

Jagan, too, it seemed believed that Naidu had planned the capital to benefit his community the Kammas who have a sizable presence in the area.

In the caste-riddled Andhra Pradesh, where communities play a vital role in political battles, Jagan wanted to neutralise the “advantage” Kammas enjoyed. So, he came out with a plan for three capitals—executive capital in Amaravati, legislative capital in Visakhapatnam and judicial capital in Kurnool. The Jagan government brought in a bill to give effect to this plan.

Visakhapatnam is a big city, a modern port and houses several industries. The plan made a lot of people happy who would have been happier had Visakhapatnam been the first choice.

And then a rollback

But the Jagan government’s move was challenged in the Andhra Pradesh High Court by farmer representatives, who said their arable land was acquired by the government. They had agreed to it because of the expected appreciation in land value. If the government– even though headed by a different political party– were to go back on the plan, it would be put farmers who gave up their land at a great disadvantage, the plea said.

A change in government shouldn’t mean a radical shift in the policy, they argued. Just before the High Court was to rule on the plea in November, the Jagan government withdrew the three-capital move and promised to come up with a more comprehensive plan. Perhaps Jagan averred that his government would lose the case.

The rollback of the bill has dashed the hopes and angered the people of Visakhapatnam. What happens next in this tug of war between Jagan and Naidu remains to be seen but one thing is sure, the final word has not yet been spoken.