With the opposition Telugu Desam Party is desperately trying to sustain the momentum of the agitation of Amaravati farmers against shifting of administrative capital of Andhra Pradesh to Visakhapatnam, the ruling YSR Congress party has been making all-out efforts to mobilise public support to the three capitals plan of the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government.
Both the parties are justified in their attempts because ultimately, they have to gain the public support for their political gains.
The TDP’s agitation, however, is confined mostly to Krishna and Guntur districts, which are largely affected by the shifting of the capital to Visakhapatnam.
The YSRC has been organizing rallies in different parts of the state in support of three capitals plan.
It is gradually building up its case to prove that the TDP is fighting for Amaravati only to protest the interests of a section of farmers belonging to a particular community, besides safeguarding the real estate interests of the TDP leaders and alleged benamis of party president N Chandrababu Naidu.
The public meeting held at Naravaripalle, the native village of Naidu in Chandragiri constituency in Chittoor district is part of the YSRC’s strategy to get public endorsement to Jagan’s three capitals plan.
The objective was to convey the message that even the people in Naidu’s own village are endorsing Jagan’s proposal.
On the face of it, there is nothing for the TDP to find fault with the YSRC leaders to conduct the public meeting at Naidu’s own turf, as the latter, during his regime as the chief minister, had held a public meeting at Pulivendula, the native of Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The TDP tried to stall the meeting, but could not because the YSRC has all the advantages of being a ruling party. So, the next best thing for the TDP is to tell the outside world that the meeting was a miserable flop and hardly a few hundreds of people mobilized from Chandragiri attended it.
That was how pro-TDP newspapers like Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy projected it on Monday. In fact, Eenadu didn’t even give any coverage to the report on the front page, except a couple of lines as a pointer stating that the meeting was a flop.
Andhra Jyothy tried to kick up a controversy by quoting Jagan’s advisor Ajeya Kallam alleging that even Supreme Court judges had grabbed lands in Amaravati through insider trading. It also carried a picture of the public meeting with empty chairs.
On the other hand, Sakshi gave a big coverage to the Naravaripalle meeting, saying that it was a big success with thousands of people attended the meeting to a packed venue and endorsed Jagan’s plan for decentralized administration.
Otherwise, the three major dailies have carried their respective special stories on their front pages.
Eenadu carried two flyer stories – one on Union finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman’s assurance to tax payers on further simplification of taxes and another locust trouble for crops in northern India. It also carried the banner story on Corona Virus threat to India, particularly to the Telugu states.
Andhra Jyothy carried a negative story as its banner on how the excise department officials are indulging in large scale corruption in implementing the new excise policy, apart from the stories on Special Investigating Team (SIT) diluting the role of Dharmana Prasada Rao in Vizag land scam and national media reports warning Jagan against being adamant in the capital shift.
Sakshi, as usual, carried a pro-establishment story as its banner on distribution of pensions even on a holiday on Sunday and an anchor story on Mahila Mitra mobile application scheme.
