It appears we have to witness certain age-related eccentricities from Chandrababu Naidu from time to time. It brings a doubt whether he is able to fathom what he is speaking.
Opinions are now being expressed that his contrasting statements on capital Amaravathi should be taken as a sign of some illness.
Sharing his thoughts, Vallabhaneni Vamsi reportedly mentioned he fears Naidu is becoming schizophrenic in reaction to Naidu’s claims that his phone is being tapped.
Recently Naidu gave an online orientation to his party members in lieu of the parliamentary sessions. As part of that, he mentioned Parliament has complete right over the issue of capital Amaravathi.
He made it clear that under Article 248 Centre should intervene and resolve the issue. He ordered that YCP is playing a game using the 3-capital strategy and that must be exposed.
He never considered the Centre when deciding Amaravathi as the capital but now he is asking the same Centre to object to the 3-capital decision. This only goes to show his cheap political nature.
The then UPA government appointed a committee led by Sivaramakrishnan to decide the right capital for Andhra Pradesh when the bifurcation took place. Sivaramakrishnan is the former Secretary for City Development at Centre.
The committee also had some highly decorated team such as Dr Rathin Roy, director NIPFP, Prof Jagan Shah, director NIUA, Aromar Revi, director IIHS, Prof Ravindran, former dean of School of Planning & Architecture.
The committee was to submit their report by August 31st, 2014. Centre had directed the committee to examine few key parameters.
Notable among them were – Minimal losses to agricultural entities, protecting regional environment, encouraging sustainable development, estimating natural calamities, keeping construction cost to minimum, doing land acquisition at minimum.
The committee did the due diligence. However, Naidu’s government was already fixed on the capital and they feared the committee might give a different report. Hence, the government didn’t cooperate with the committee.
While Sivaramakrishnan was doing the required groundwork, Naidu appointed his own committee on July 21st led by K Narayana. It comprised of MPs Galla Jayadev, Sujana Chowdary, leader Masthan Rao, industrialists Sanjay Reddy, Srinivas Srini Raju, Prabhakar Rao.
The surprising part is, Sivaramakrishnan committee submitted its report to Centre but Narayana committee didn’t submit anything.
Sivaramakrishnan committee expressed reservations on having a capital in the Vijayawada-Guntur region. Some are also saying it is time to look into the essays written by Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao.
This essay revealed why Sivaramakrishnan committee did not opt for Amaravathi as the capital. Details reveal Amaravathi has 15000 acres of fertile land growing more than 100 types of crops especially food, fruits, flowers. Thousands of farmers and their families are depending on this land.
TDP government acquiring 54000 acres for capital was the biggest blunder. The farmers gave close to 32000 acres as part of land pooling. The state government doing real estate business with this land is unfortunate.
On September 1st, Naidu government decided to construct the capital around Vijayawada. Naidu announced the same on September 4th in Assembly. He also read out the various projects he would be undertaking. He claimed he would come up with 3 mega cities, 16 smart cities. Not even one city was made.
Naidu gets the credit of brushing off the recommendations made by a highly expert committee and going by the recommendation of his own associates.
The same Naidu is now saying Parliament has the complete right to decide about a capital. Why didn’t he remember the same when he decided about the capital? For someone who has 40 years of political experience, is this a sane thing to say?
