As elections near, 3 capitals centre of attention in AP

The JACs supported by the YSRCP have also organised Visakha Garjana and Rayalaseema Garjana to drum up support for forming three capitals. With no encouraging response to their demand, the Amaravati Farmers' JAC is planning to hit Delhi streets to press for retaining Amaravati as one capital

Visakhapatnam: With the general elections fast nearing, all eyes are now centered around the next move of the State Government on the contentious three-capitals issue.

After receiving severe setbacks against the proposal on trifurcation, the SLP filed by the YSRCP Government against the AP High Court's judgement against not developing Amaravati as the sole capital is pending before the apex court even as the Ministers under the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy Government exude confidence that trifurcation will materialise from next academic year.

Though legislations on three capitals need to be finalised, even on Tuesday's State Cabinet no such discussion took place. However, Industries and Commerce Minister Gudivada Amarnath recently announced that whatever one says, administration of the State will take place from Visakhapatnam from next academic year.

The JACs supported by the YSRCP have also organised Visakha Garjana and Rayalaseema Garjana to drum up support for forming three capitals. With no encouraging response to their demand, the Amaravati Farmers' JAC is planning to hit Delhi streets to press for retaining Amaravati as one capital.

The elections to the State Assembly are scheduled to be held in the next 16 months. All the political parties including the YSRCP have already sounded the poll bugle and asked their respective cadres to be prepared to remain on campaign mode. Having received several adverse judgements one after the another, the AP Government in the SLP filed in the Supreme Court has sought a stay on the March 3 order of a division bench of AP High Court in response to a batch of petitions filed by the farmers of 29 villages in Amaravati region and others to develop the capital city and the capital region as per the Master Plan finalised by the erstwhile Telugu Desam Party government. The court in its order gave a six months deadline, which had expired long ago.

In its initial order on November 28, the apex court stayed the High Court order to the State to "construct and develop" Amaravati capital city and region within six months. Next hearing is expected on January 31.

The High Court bench in its 307-page order had held the view that the State has no legislative competence to change or remove Amaravati as the capital and termed it abuse of power and arbitrary exercise of power to make Amaravati the Legislative Capital, Visakhapatnam the Executive Capital and Kurnool the Judicial Capital.

TDP national president N Chandrababu Naidu, when he became the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation, had acquired 33,000-odd acres from the farmers under Land Pooling Scheme and involving Singapore Government agencies to develop the capital city and the capital region.

The World Bank-funded startup area project was withdrawn as YSRCP after coming to power in 2019 dropped the proposal. However, the YSRCP in its petition claimed that the High Court order challenging the AP Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) Act and AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Three Regions Act, 2020 has turned infructuous as the State Government has withdrawn the said legislations. The petition said the High Court order disputing legislative competence of the State was wrong.