Visakhapatnam will be Andhra Pradesh’s new capital, chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said.
Tuesday afternoon, indicating plans to develop Amaravati – on the banks of the Krishna river – as the capital city have been scrapped.
The announcement of a new capital for Andhra comes nine years after the state of Telangana was carved out of its territory and given Hyderabad as its capital.
At an event in Delhi the YSR Congress chief said: “… I invite you to Visakhapatnam, which is going to be our capital in the days to come. I myself will also be shifting to Visakhapatnam in the months to come.”
“We’re organising a global summit… an investors summit on March 3-4 (in Visakhapatnam) (and I want) to take this opportunity to personally invite all of you to the summit… and request all of you to not only come but also put in a good word, a strong word, to colleagues abroad,” the chief minister said.
At the International Diplomatic Alliance meet in Delhi he urged investors to ‘visit us and see… how easy it is do to business in the state of Andhra Pradesh’.
The identity of a new capital for Andhra Pradesh – for which over 33,000 acres of land had been acquired from farmers around Amaravati – has been the source of social, legal, economic and political friction over the past several years.
In 2015, then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu said Amaravati would be the capital but, five years later, a proposal to have three capital cities was floated.
Under that scheme Visakhapatnam and Kurnool would join Amaravati; the latter would be the legislative centre of power, Kurnool the judicial capital and Visakhapatnam would become the executive capital of Andhra Pradesh.
In March last year the Andhra Pradesh High Court ruled against the plan to have three capitals and told the government to develop Amaravati. The court said the legislature lacked competence to make such decisions.
In November the state repealed the law that intended to establish three capital cities and promised a ‘comprehensive, complete and better’ proposal.
However, in a twist, the Supreme Court then stayed that judgment, noting ‘courts are not governments’ and that the High Court had overstepped its limits.
Meanwhile, amid the back-and-forth over selection of a new capital, Amaravati also became the centre of a land scam – an allegation levelled by the ruling YSR Congress against the Telugu Desam Party, its rival and former ruling outfit.