The state of united Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated into Telangana and the current Andhra Pradesh in 2014, after relentless protests for the want of a separate Telangana state. While everything worked out fine for Telangana, Andhra Pradesh has been suffering ever since, starting with the problem of not having a proper capital.
Hyderabad is the common capital for both the states for 10 years, but after that, Andhra Pradesh is to have a capital for itself. Chandrababu Naidu, the then Chief Minister, took it upon himself to find a suitable capital for the state, and found one in Amaravati.
Chandrababu laid all the plans and foundations to develop Amaravati as an advanced Capital for the state, one that could self-finance itself, create employment for all of its residents, and one that would never fail its state. So he requested all the farmers of Amaravati to donate their lands for the transformation of Amaravati into a capital, and the farmers abided by donating almost 33,000 acres of land.
Everything seemed to be going fine, with everyone in favor of Amaravati as the capital, including opposition political parties and the people of the state. And then, the government in Andhra Pradesh changed. The YSRCP formed the government after the 2019 elections, and things started to go haywire after that.
Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy announced his 3 Capital plan in the assembly – Amaravati as the Legislative capital, Kurnool as the Judiciary Capital and Visakhapatnam as the Executive Capital – and the announcement didn’t go down well with anyone in the state.
Ever since then, there has been a state of chaos and disagreement in the state, with the farmers of Amaravati staging protests in Amaravati, not wanting to see their donations go in vain, and wanting the government to reinstate Amaravati as the only capital. Ironically, when Jagan was in the opposition, he promised to the people of Andhra Pradesh that he would make sure that Amaravati would become a formidable capital.
To this day, it has been 200 days since the farmers of Amaravati started to protest. Despite the coronavirus pandemic being at large in the country and also in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the farmers of Amaravati are continuing to protest even today, and ex-Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is openly supporting their protests, by joining them in action. Not just Naidu and the farmers of Amaravati, but a major section of people are against the outrageous idea of 3 Capitals.
Giving Andhra Pradesh 3 Capitals would not only be totally flawed and impractical, it would also be downright cruel to the livelihood and the generosity of 24,000 farmers who donated their hard-earned lands. It is time that the government checks its totalitarian power policy and realises that this a democracy that we are living in.