YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s statement in the assembly on Tuesday hinting at creation of three separate capital cities for the state has generated unrest in Amaravati region and euphoria in north-coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.
The mainstream media in Telugu, too, reacted to the development in both critical and euphoric ways, in accordance with their political alignment.
Naturally for Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy, the unrest among the farmers of Amaravati who had given away their lands for the capital has become the banner story.
Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy dedicated the entire top half of their front pages to the agitations taken up by the farmers of Amaravati against the proposal to trifurcate the capital into executive, legislative and judiciary capitals to be located at different places.
The banner headline of Eenadu: “No option but to commit suicide” with the picture of a woman farmer carrying a pesticide bottle was aimed at creating an impression that Jagan’s decision is creating a regional divide.’ On the other hand, Andhra Jyothy said the three capitals’ proposal has ignited fire in Amaravati capital region.
Both the dailies gave a lot of importance to Telugu Desam Party president and opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu’s criticism against the decision, saying it is not so easy to operate three different capitals and that decentralized development did not mean dividing the capital.
Both the dailies also sought to create an impression that Jagan’s decision has also created huge disappointment among the state government employees.
Sakshi, however, carried a follow-up story on Jagan’s decision with a special story on how multiple capital cities would bring about development at rapid pace.
While ignoring the agitation of Amaravati farmers, it sought to project that the people are euphoric over the proposal for three capitals. At the same time, it also carried Naidu’s comments on the front page.
Coming to the other news, Eenadu and Sakshi gave a lot of prominence to the Jagan government’s decision to set up Skill universities at Tirupati and Visakhapatnam and also the signing of memorandum of understanding with National Mineral Development Corporation for supply of iron ore to the proposed Kadapa Steel Plant.
Andhra Jyothy also gave some positive coverage to Jagan’s decisions, including agreement on iron ore supply to Kadapa steel plant. But it focused on Jagan’s directions to the officials to speed up development of ports.
The Press Council of India’s direction to the state government to revoke controversial government order no. 2430 on filing of defamation cases against the media houses for anti-government news also figured prominently on the front page of Eenadu.
Sakshi also carried a story on state finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy’s appeal to the Centre for liberal grants to the state during the apex council meeting on GST in Delhi. The news is important in the interests of the state.
The Kendra Sahitya Academy award to Andhra writer Bandi Narayana Swamy, confirmation of death sentence to Nirbhaya case accused and flood of runs in the second one-day international cricket match at Visakhapatnam were some of the other major news in the media today.
