If Telugu Desam Party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had his own reasons in choosing Amaravati as the capital region, YSR Congress party president and present chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has his own reason for proposing to shift the administrative capital to Visakhapatnam.
While ministers in the Jagan cabinet, particularly municipal administration minister Botsa Satyanarayana, have been saying that Naidu had chosen Amaravati only to benefit his Kamma community people who had purchased huge extent of lands through insider trading, the TDP leaders have been saying that nearly 90 per cent of the farmers who had given away their lands for the capital are from other caste groups including BCs and SCs.
However, if one were to read the edit-page article of Andhra Jyothy managing director Vemuri Radhakrishna in his column – Kotha Paluku – on Sunday, one would get the impression that Amaravati is indeed a Kamma-dominated capital.
Radhakrishna virtually spit venom on Jagan for contemplating the three-capitals model for decentralisation of development.
According to him, Jagan has taken the decision only to destroy the Kamma community and is forcing them to commit suicide because of his vindictive attitude.
What does it imply? It means Radhakrishna has endorsed Amaravati as the capital of Kammas. Though it is true that there are large number of BC and SC farmers in Amaravati, they own just very small landholdings of one acre to a maximum of three or four acres each.
It is only Kamma farmers who own huge extent of lands and they had given them on lease to tenant farmers for cultivation.
They gave their lands to the government under land pooling for the capital and got commercial and residential plots, hoping that their value would shoot up once the capital is constructed.
It is this section which also bought plots from smaller farmers by offering them attractive price with a hope that they could mint money in future. And they are now crying foul over shifting of capital to Visakhapatnam.
So, inadvertently, Radhakrishna has admitted the bitter truth!
