Andhra Pradesh chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy informed his Cabinet that he will shift to Visakhapatnam and start working from the port city from July this year. The move has triggered speculations about his three-capital plan.

However, there was no reference to the three-capital plan or the shifting of the administration to Visakhapatnam in the speech read out by Governor S Abdul Nazeer during the joint sitting of the Assembly and the Legislative Council as the Budget session was kicked off.

The state Budget will be presented on 16 March and the session will continue till 24 March as decided by the Business Advisory Committee headed by Speaker Tammineni Sitaram.

Delivering his first address as governor of the state, Nazeer praised the YSRCP Government under Reddy as “inclusive and transparent”. He said that economy of the state showed an encouraging trend.

“The effective policy formulation and implementation by my government has ensured a year-on-year GSDP growth rate of 11.43 per cent in 2021-22 which is the highest amongst all the states,” he said.

A larger part of the governor’s address dealt with various welfare schemes introduced by the YSRCP government but also touched upon the Global Investor Summit due to the Opposition’s criticism about lack of industrialisation.

“The two-day event demonstrated not only the credibility of the government but also the faith reposed by national/international investors in the state leadership. The phenomenal response of the investors from 25 countries and from 30 corporate giants as well as a host of others to invest in the state, itself is a testimony for the conducive business friendly environment in the state,” Nazeer said, adding that 378 MoUs were signed during the Summit with a total commitment of Rs 13.42 lakh crore and generation of over lakh jobs across 16 key sectors.

However, Opposition TDP was not convinced by certain parts of the governor’s address and repeatedly disrupted him. The TDP members claimed that the figures of GSDP growth rate were manipulated and also raised questions about law and order, Polavaram irrigation project and Amaravati.