YSRCP 'capital'ising on fragmented Opposition

Keep your fingers crossed. There is a possibility of the Government coming up with a package for the farmers of 29 villages in Amaravati capital region and dousing the fire. If this happens, the opposition would suffer a major setback.

The opposition parties have failed in assessing the style of functioning of the YSRCP Government. While they are moving on the beaten track and feel that the old, time-tested style of protests will put brakes on the moves of the Government, the government is going ahead with its plans to implement what they feel is right.

Ever since the Chief Minister announced that there could be a change in the capital city from Amaravati to Vishakhapatnam, the fragmented opposition parties failed to come under one umbrella with one leader and display their show of strength.

Yes, agitations are on in the 29 villages and even women have come out of houses and have been protesting against the government's decision. People are in state of shock since they would be the ultimate losers in the entire game of one upmanship by the present government.

So far about 10 farmers lost their life due to the shock that their future was grim. The people of these villages have sacrificed 33,000 acres hoping that their financial status will change, and their kith and kin will be benefitted in terms of employment opportunities if a world-class city comes up in Amaravati.

The general practice is that a government continues major policies taken by the previous government. But in Andhra Pradesh in the last seven months there has been reverse process in almost all aspects.

The opposition parties perhaps felt that they can intensify the agitation in a phased manner and allowed 22 days to slip out of their hand. Barring protests in Amaravati and some villages in Guntur district, there has not been any major reaction from other parts of the state.

The opposition parties which wanted to take up an awareness campaign from Wednesday were in for shock as the government had put brakes to their efforts. Of course, the rules the police have been quoting are something funny and unacceptable.

The police told the leaders of JAC which includes the TDP that the buses cannot move unless they get the route map cleared, get police clearance and permission from police. This is something unheard of. The police had also come up with another rule recently saying that candlelight march cannot be taken out unless there was clearance from fire brigade.

While the opposition continues to fret and fume over the way police has been creating hurdles, the decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday gave green signal for the elections of the local bodies in the state by dismissing the plea of one K Navin Kumar challenging the reservation policy.

This comes a shot in the arm for the Government and create fresh problems for the main opposition in particular.

With this, the notification for ZPTC and MPTC election would be issued by January 17 and election would be conducted on February 8 and the results would be announced on February 10. The mandal Parishad presidents and Zilla parishad chairmen would be elected by February 15.

Likewise, the notification for panchayat election would be released on February 8. The Panchayat election would be completed by March 3. The whole exercise should be completed by March 3 in three phases. Now the opposition parties more so the TDP will have to focus its attention on these elections as well.

The ruling of the High Court comes as a boon for the ruling party as the attention of the opposition would get diverted and they will be more busy in fire fighting operations like trying handling dissent among the rank and file and keeping their horses in the stable.

This naturally would affect the yellow party in taking the agitation opposition against shifting of the capital further. Meanwhile, the Government is going ahead with its proposals to shift the capital and has already indicated two phases of action plan.

One to have Secretariat in the Rs 100 crore Millennium Towers constructed during TDP regime for having incubation centre and promotion of IT in Visakhapatnam.

The government proposes to shift the Secretariat and CMO along with about 10 departments to this place by January end. Under Phase-II, it proposes to have Tram service from R K Beach to Bheemili in addition to Metro rail services.