“Convert every crisis into an opportunity” – this has been the slogan of Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu in all his public talks. Now, the YSR Congress party seems to have decided to follow the same slogan in targeting Naidu in the coming elections.
The judgement given by the state high court on Thursday declaring that Amaravati is the only state capital and the state legislature has no legal competence to shift or bifurcate or trifurcate the capital has certainly landed the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in deep trouble.
It is a different matter that Jagan has the option of filing a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the state high court’s decision, but at least for the next few months, he cannot go ahead with his three capitals’ plan. It is definitely a setback for him.
But Jagan is learnt to have decided to convert this crisis situation into an opportunity to run down the TDP and its president Naidu.
Forget the outcome of the case in Supreme Court, Jagan will make the maximum use of this development to project Naidu as a villain both in north-coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.
This was evident from the comments made by state municipal administration minister Botsa Satyanarayana and endowments minister Vellampalli Srinivas.
Both of them made it clear that the YSRC was committed to three capitals plan for all round development of the three regions.
Botsa alleged that Naidu was interested in protecting the interests of his own community people in Amaravati and was not bothered about development of north coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.
“That is why, he made his people moving the courts to stall the decentralised development in the state. We are not against farmers of Amaravati, but we have to protect the interests of five crore Telugu people,” he said.
In the coming days, the YSRC is going to take up this argument strongly into the people – saying Naidu belongs to only Amaravati and not the entire state. This is to create a negative image for Naidu in north coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.
The comment by Botsa that the government would take up the high court judgement issue with five crore people indicates that the three capitals’ slogan is going to be the plank for the YSRC in the coming elections!
