Nonagenarian freedom fighter G. Vandanam has opined that the truncated Andhra Pradesh needs a centralised capital.
Talking to The Hindu during the Republic Day celebrations here on Sunday, Mr. Vandanam said, “What we need is focused development. The State with scarce resources after bifurcation can ill-afford to have multiple capitals as it struggles to cope with the bifurcation blues.”
“The available resources should be spent on developing a single centralised capital at a place that is almost equidistant from every corner of the State,” said Mr. Vandanam, who is one of the very few surviving freedom fighters in Prakasam district.
The essential characteristic of parliamentary democracy was fusion of the executive and the legislature, he said.
Plight of farmers
“The idea of decentralised capitals is not in the larger interests of the State,” he said, arguing that it was not correct to conclude that decentralised capitals would pave the way for decentralised development.
“It is a pity that the farmers who had parted with their land for the capital are now left in the lurch,” he observed.
“The fruits of development have not trickled down to the downtrodden sections of people even after seven decades of Independence,” he lamented.
Endorsing his views, Tanguturi Gopalakrishna, grandson of freedom fighter and first Chief Minister of Andhra State Prakasam Pantulu, said, “Visakhapatanam, at one far end of the State, is not accessible to people from most parts of the State.”
The capital should be developed in the region where large tracts of government land was available, he said, and demanded that justice be done to the farmers who had parted with their land for the capital.
