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With the deadline for Hyderabad remaining the joint capital of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana set to expire on June 2, opinion in the ruling YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh appears divided, with key leaders speaking in different voices.
As per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, Hyderabad was to be the joint capital of the two states for 10 years, from June 2014 till June 2, 2024, after which it would be the capital of Telangana alone, as the city is located inside its territory.
On Tuesday, YSRCP MP Y V Subba Reddy, the former chairman of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) and a key aide of Andhra Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, said Hyderabad should continue as the joint capital until the state had a capital of its own. On Wednesday, however, senior minister Botsa Satyanarayana said it was not feasible to continue with Hyderabad as the joint capital beyond the deadline, a statement that is being seen as damage control by the ruling party.
Subba Reddy, who is also the regional coordinator for North Andhra Pradesh, made the remarks at Visakhapatnam, while speaking about developing the city as Andhra’s administrative capital. Stressing that developing Visakhapatnam as the capital was prudent, as it is already a developed city and does not need a huge financial commitment, he said a section of the YSRCP believed Hyderabad should continue as the capital for some more time. Subba Reddy also pointed to the legal wrangles which had delayed the CM’s plans to have Visakhapatnam as the administrative capital.
Sources said Subba Reddy, who just received a Rajya Sabha nomination, was echoing the CM’s views. Jagan is believed to have deferred his Visakhapatnam plans as he is currently focused on winning the Assembly polls that are due along with the Lok Sabha elections in April or May this year. YSRCP leaders said Jagan may return to the issue only after the polls now.
Beyond Visakhapatnam as well, there is a rethink in the YSRCP leadership over Jagan’s ‘decentralised development plan’ — a key component of which was the setting up of three capitals, with Amaravati as the legislative capital, Kurnool as the judicial capital and Visakhapatnam as the administrative capital — which has been caught in legal troubles. Jagan reportedly wants Hyderabad to continue as the joint capital until the matter is resolved, or at least some secretariat offices in Visakhapatnam start functioning.
Seeking to put the YSCRP in a spot on the matter, the opposition TDP claimed ruling party leaders wanted to retain Hyderabad as Andhra capital due to the illegal assets they owned in the city. TDP state president K Atchen Naidu said Wednesday: “While some leaders of the party are talking of establishing decentralised capitals, their colleagues want Hyderabad to continue as the joint capital. Jagan destroyed Amaravati, the capital city announced by the TDP, but there is no progress in converting Visakhapatnam into the administrative capital. Actually, they don’t have any plans to build a capital city. The indecision is only because they have illegal assets and properties amassed in Hyderabad that they want to protect, and are also afraid of losing the coming elections,” Naidu said.
Andhra BJP spokesperson L Dinkar accused the YSRCP of cheating people in the name of decentralised development. “Instead of completing the half-finished Amravati as the capital city, Jagan destroyed it, while promising three capitals. Now, he is backtracking on that too,” he said.
Satyanarayana’s remarks contradicting Subba Reddy’s views came soon after. “Now that the stipulated 10 years are over, the YSRCP does not think it is possible for Hyderabad to continue as the joint capital (of Andhra and Telangana). We will have our decentralised capitals soon, with Visakhapatnam as the administrative capital,” he said.
The issue of a capital for Andhra has now stretched over two governments. The TDP under CM N Chandrababu Naidu first began building Amaravati as the new capital during his 2014-2019 government. However, this came to a halt after he lost the May 2019 Assembly polls. Jagan put a halt to this, and so while Amaravati now hosts the new state’s legislature and executive branches, it is yet to formally designate a city as its capital.
Jagan was seen to have floated the idea of decentralised development only to override his arch rival’s project of making Amaravati the state capital. However, even without the legal troubles, the Jagan government has dragged its feet on the matter.
