BJP will not keep quiet if Andhra Pradesh Capital is Changed: Kanna Lakshminarayana

Vijayawada: BJP state unit president Kanna Lakshminarayana made it clear that the party would not remain silent when the YSRCP government was shifting capital from Amaravati. He inaugurated the party's I-Hub (information hub) here on Sunday.

Speaking to media persons on the occasion, Lakshminarayana wondered as to how the state government could change the capital without consultations with the stakeholders. The YSRCP government had been taking wrong decisions for the last seven months, he said.

To a question, he said the Centre was also a stakeholder in capital as several Central institutions come up in the state on assumption that Amaravati would be the capital city.

He reminded the state government that the Centre had spent Rs 2,500 crore for capital construction.

The farmers of Amaravati also gave 33,000 acre land and several investors and people purchased Amaravati bonds worth of Rs 2,000 crore. Now the Centre and farmers of Amaravati are partners in the capital, he explained.

Dismissing a raft of committees constituted by the state government to justify change of capital, the BJP state chief said Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was taking decisions by appointing his own committees.

He recalled that the political parties like YSRCP, BJP and TDP accepted Amaravati capital in the past.

The BJP is committed to decentralisation of development but does not extend the support to the proposals of decentralisation of administration, he clarified.

The decisions of the Jagan government were damaging the image and interests of the state, he lamented.

On controversy over Citizens (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens, he said that the Centre did not remove names of anyone in the country. He said that the people of the country had not need to worry about the Act.

BJP leaders Ravela Kishore Babu, Shaik Baji, Kilaru Dileep, IT Hub chief Bala Krishnamohan and others were also present.