The YSR Congress party government in Andhra Pradesh led by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided firmly to shift the administrative capital of the state from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam.
Since it is a crucial decision, the government has to go about in a systematic manner without giving any scope for legal hassles.
However, it is taking decisions in a hurried manner, probably keeping in view the ongoing agitation by the farmers of Amaravati against the capital shift which is getting intensified with every passing day.
But this hurry appears to be creating confusion in the official machinery which in turn is leading to a chaotic situation. It was evident from the way the Jagan government has done somersaults on the conduct of cabinet meeting.
On Tuesday last, there was a government order from chief secretary Neelam Sawhney that the cabinet meeting would be held at 9 am on January 20, a couple of hours before the commencement of the assembly session notification for which was issued by the state legislative assembly secretariat on Monday.
Obviously, the cabinet meeting was meant to formally approve the bills, including the one for repealing the AP Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) and another one on “decentralized administration” (creating three capital cities). The bills are supposed to be passed by the assembly that follows the cabinet meeting.
But on Friday evening, there was yet another GO from the same chief secretary’s office, stating that the cabinet meeting is being preponed to Saturday (to take the decision on CRDA Act repealing and capital shift).
Ironically, the GO mentioned that the cabinet meeting was originally scheduled to meet “at 9 am on December 20, 2020,” (instead of January 20). And nobody was bothered to correct this goof-up and the GO was released to the media and the reporters, too, ignored it, thinking that it was a typographical error.
Everybody thought Jagan might have preponed the cabinet meeting to fast forward the decisions on the capital shift. But there were leaks to a section of media that the preponement was done to avoid hassles from the TDP in the legislative council where the YSRC doesn’t have majority.
Therefore, the government wanted the APCRDA bill to be projected as a finance bill so that the council cannot reject the same. Since it required the approval of the Governor, the cabinet meeting had to be preponed.
But late on Friday night, there was yet another GO from the chief secretary office, stating that the cabinet meeting has been rescheduled again and it would be held at 9 am on January 20, as scheduled originally.
This has caused a lot of confusion in the media as to why the government was taking so many somersaults for conducting the cabinet meeting.
May be, the government is planning to make some last-minute changes in the bill. In any case, these goofs-up will only bring bad name to Jagan government.
