Ten years after its bifurcation, Andhra Pradesh still does not have a capital. But what’s more surprising is that the lack of capital has even ceased to be an issue in this election. Only the abandoned, under-construction buildings in the Amaravati capital area, overrun by weeds, stand today as testimony to the dream of a capital city while the farmers who gave up their land for pooling are hoping that a TDP win will restore the plans for a greenfield capital city.
In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for Amaravati capital city when TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister. Naidu had promised to build a greenfield capital city on 33,000 acres of fertile land by river Krishna to drive the state’s economic growth after bifurcation but he lost the election four years later.
When YS Jagan Mohan Reddy assumed office, he promptly dropped Naidu’s plans for Amaravati declaring that the state on the brink of bankruptcy did not have the means to develop the greenfield capital. He instead proposed to set up the capital at Vizag, which was already a developed cosmopolitan city while declaring Mangalagiri and Kurnool as legislative and judicial capitals, respectively, in order to mollify the coastal and Rayalaseema regions. However, he never got around to shifting the administration to Vizag before elections came calling. In between the agitations by the land losers of Amaravati, political slugfest, and endless litigations, Andhra Pradesh was left without a capital even a decade after the loss of Hyderabad.
Economist and author Parakala Prabhakar, who was once adviser (communications) in the Naidu government before quitting midway, said the lack of a capital city was not one of the key issues in this election. “In the 20 seats in and around the area (Amaravati), the issue of capital city might be an issue but not in the rest of the state. It is just one of the sticks to beat YS Jagan, just like in the case of special status. Nobody was on the streets to demand special status, were they?” asked Prabhakar who had made a documentary “Capital Tragedy: Amaravati” highlighting how Naidu as a chief minister had sold the people a dream called Amaravati while Reddy had shattered the same dream, leaving Andhra Pradesh without a capital city. He however, pointed out that it was the Kammas (an affluent, politically dominant caste) who primarily had “donated” the land for the capital city and also profited from it and hence the rest of the state is in no way concerned about its fate. Hence, the YSRCP has relied on caste matrix to thwart the TDP and the ire of the land losers. For instance, he fielded a BC candidate in Mangalagiri where TDP’s Nara Lokesh is in the fray since the constituency has a large padmashali (weavers) voters. But anti-incumbency is high against the YSRCP, particularly among teachers, government employees and the middle class due to no rule of law, poor infrastructure and opportunity.
During the campaign, it is only Chandrababu Naidu who talks about Amaravati in the area, while YS Jagan Mohan Reddy mostly sticks to his welfare schemes and attacks Naidu for his “false promises.” The TDP-BJP-JSP alliance led by Naidu has promised to rejuvenate Amaravati if they come to power. “No doubt if Chandrababu Naidu wins, then Amaravati would be restored as a capital, but whether he would be able to mobilise capital like he did between 2014-2019 is difficult to say,” said Prabhakar. Nonetheless, the future of Amaravati hinges on the TDP-BJP-JSP alliance; otherwise, this fertile tract of land, once home to more than 100 kinds of crops, would be reduced permanently to an uncultivable wasteland.