It is more or less certain that the statement of YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on creation of three capitals for the state will become a reality sooner or later, if one were to go by the indications coming from his cabinet colleagues.
It is also true that the statement has created unrest among a section of farmers in Amaravati region who are more worried about their lands, rather than the capital itself.
The people have given away their lands to the government hoping that the capital would come up at Amaravati and their land values would go up.
If the executive capital is shifted from Amaravati, there won’t be any development there and their land values would go down.
If the Jagan government gives back their lands and assures them proper compensation, there is no reason why they will not agree for shifting of capital.
After all, they don’t have illusions about Singapore-like city, which was dreamt about by Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu.
But the pro-TDP media has been trying their best to fan the flames of unrest among the Amaravati farmers so as to trouble the YSRC government.
For the second consecutive day, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy carried banner stories about agitations by a section of farmers in the villages and the bandh enforced by them demanding that the capital city be retained at Amaravati.
Though it was a peaceful and spontaneous protests without causing much troubles to the people, both the dailies have given so much build-up that the agitation is as serious as the nation-wide protests against Citizenship Amendment Bill and National Register of Citizens.
Eenadu also carried a small report on the high court asking the state government about its stand on Amaravati. The court was acting on a public interest litigation petition filed by one of the farmers.
Of course, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy also carried the agitations against CAA and NRC in a big way, since it has taken a violent turn leading to firing by the police resulting in death of three agitators. It was a banner story in Andhra Jyothy and second lead story in Eenadu.
Sakshi has ignored both these developments, as it is pretty evident that the Jagan government is going ahead with the three capitals formula and so, there is no point in highlighting the counter-propaganda.
Instead, it focussed on Jagan’s representation to the 15th Finance Commission seeking liberal assistance from the Centre for various projects in the state, as part of fulfilling the assurances given to the state during bifurcation of combined state.
Andhra Jyothy also gave prominence to Jagan’s representation to the finance commission by carrying a second lead story.
However, it also carried to two negative reports against the Jagan government – one on its attempt to grab the powers of the Governor in appointing and transferring vice-chancellors of the universities according to its will.
The second one is on how the government is going out of the way to help Swamy Swaroopanandendra to his Sarada Peetham by asking executive officers of five major temples to extend donations to the peetham for conducting religious programmes. This is obviously aimed at instigating the saffron party and other religious groups.
Bonanza to Australian cricket players in IPL auctions, impeachment of US president Donald Trump and Jagan’s appeal to the corporates to help the government’s Nadu-Nedu programme to improve the conditions in government schools are some other stories that figured on the front pages of the leading dailies.
Eenadu and Sakshi have got the half-page advertisement on the front page on the launch of YSR Nethanna Hastham for the benefit of handloom weavers. As usual, Andhra Jyothy did not get the same!
