Vijayawada: Capital shift historical blunder, says Congress

Vijayawada: Terming the proposal to shift the capital city to Visakhapatnam as a historical blunder, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) said that the YCP government stopped the capital city construction work started by the previous government that created confusion among the people.

Addressing the media at Andhra Ratna Bhavan here on Friday, APCC working president N Tulasi Reddy said that the Chief Minister should change his decision after the Supreme Court made it clear that there was no insider trading at Amaravati.

Tulasi Reddy said that the reasons like decentralisation, paucity of funds, flood threat, insider trading, one particular community, cited by the Chief Minister to shift the capital city were not rational. "It is proved beyond reasonable doubt that the cited reasons were ridiculous," he said. As per the statistics, the Kamma community formed 18 per cent in the capital region, while Reddys 24 per cent and SCs and STs 55 percent, he pointed out.

The PCC working president deplored that the Chief Minister cheated the youth by not filling the vacant government posts though he promised before elections to that extent. "Though there were 2.50 lakh vacant posts in the government, only 10,143 were announced in the job calendar," he said.

He demanded the government to issue a fresh job calendar, get the special category status to the State, and provide employment to the youth through self-employment schemes. The unemployed youth should be paid Rs 2,000 per month, he demanded.

Tulasi Reddy expressed concern over the exemption of poor Kapu women of Rayalaseema from Kapu Nestam scheme and demanded immediate implementation of the scheme to them too.