Political parties insist on continuing capital in Amaravati

Vijayawada: Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary K Ramakrishna has appealed to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy to continue Amaravati as the capital of Andhra Pradesh as all political parties except the YSRCP are in favour of retaining Amaravati as the State capital.

He said majority people in Andhra Pradesh have the same view and reminded that Rs 9,600 crore was already spent on capital construction works in Amaravati.

Ramakrishna along with the leaders of the CPM, Congress, BJP and other parties paid rich tributes to 66 persons who lost their lives in Amaravati during the struggle opposing the shifting of capital to Visakhapatnam.

He expressed solidarity with the Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi for observing one-day Deeksha on Saturday as the struggle for Save Amaravati entered the 200th day. Mahila JAC leaders observed One-Day Deeksha at the Amaravati Parirakshana Samiti office in Autonagar here on Saturday.

Speaking on the occasion, Ramakrishna suggested that Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy should rethink on shifting the administrative capital to Vizag. He said the Y S Jagan had not mentioned the capital change issue in his party manifesto and wondered why the Chief Minister had changed his stand on coming to power.

CPM State secretariat member Ch Baburao has alleged that Chief Minister Jagan was adopting undemocratic policies on shifting of capital. He said the farmers of capital Amaravati have been agitating for the last 200 days but there was no response from the Chief Minister. He said decentralisation meansdevelopment of all regions but the State government was adopting decentralisation with political motives.

He said the Union government has not sanctioned funds for construction of Capital Amaravati and suggested the Union government should maintain federal spirit on development of all regions and allocate funds for continuation of the capital in Amaravati.

Amaravati JAC convener RV Swamy said the JAC leaders would soon meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on capital issue. BJP State vice-president Velagapudi Gopalakrishna said the YSRCP government had killed capital Amaravati and made it clear that the BJP would continue fight for continuation of capital Amaravati. TDP leader and former ZP chairperson Gadde Anuradha, Mahila JAC leader Sunkara Padmasri, TDP former corporator Devineni Aparna and others participated in the one Day Deeksha.