The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is back in power in Andhra Pradesh and has also brought the spotlight back on Amaravati, giving new hope to farmers and others, who had been fighting for more than four years against the previous YSRCP government’s move to shift the state capital. The return of N Chandrababu Naidu, who envisioned Amaravati as a dream capital and world-class city about a decade ago, has brought cheers to those waging a relentless fight to demand the development of Amaravati as the only state capital. Chandrababu Naidu’s announcement that Amaravati is the state capital has come as a big relief for farmers, who had given 33,000 acres of land for development of the state capital in the hope of a bright future.
The works on the mega project came to a halt in December 2019 after the YSRCP government reversed the decision of the earlier TDP government to develop Amaravati as the state capital. It was on December 17, 2019, that the then Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy announced in the state Assembly that three state capitals will be developed reversing the decision of the previous TDP government to develop Amaravati as the state capital. The Jagan Mohan Reddy government planned to develop Visakhapatnam as the administrative capital, Kurnool as the judicial capital and Amaravati only as a legislative capital. On December 17, 2023, protests by farmers and women of Amaravati completed four years.
The farmers were up in arms and legally challenged the idea of three capitals during the last two years and mobilised public support for their demand. On March 3, 2022, the Andhra Pradesh High Court directed the state government to develop Amaravati as the state capital in six months. In November 2022, the Supreme Court while hearing the Special Leave Petition filed by the state government, stayed the High Court’s directions to develop infrastructure in Amaravati within a stipulated time frame. The Supreme Court, however, did not stay the other part of the judgement, which had declared Amaravati as the state capital and that the law on three capitals was not valid.
Farmers, who voluntarily gave lands ranging from half an acre to 50 acres, were left in the lurch as they felt that Jagan Mohan Reddy did this out of vengeance towards Chandrababu Naidu. For every acre of cultivable land, the farmers were promised 1,000 square yards of residential plots and 250 square yards of commercial plots with all the infrastructure. They were also promised Rs.50,000 annuity per acre with an annual hike of 10 per cent. Nearly all the farmers received the allotment papers but their dreams of owning developed plots remained on paper with the change of government in 2019. YSRCP’s crushing defeat in the 2024 Assembly elections and the return of TDP has raised new hope among them.
