Tourism Minister Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao has said the overwhelming response from the people of North Andhra to greet Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy from the airport to the Visakha Utsav venue was a pointer to the fact that people favour development of Visakhapatnam as the Executive capital.
“The city has already emerged as the tourism hub and IT and financial capital of the State. Now the people see a fresh hope that the YSR Congress Party government will make it the Executive capital to take up more schemes to remove backwardness in North Andhra,” he opined.
Coming down heavily on TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu for neglecting the development of Amaravati despite getting a mandate to rule for five years, he said except creating hype over the capital and showing a futuristic city in graphics to ‘hoodwink’ the people, he did nothing. He also criticised him for shifting to Amaravati in a hurry despite Centre’s consent to make Hyderabad the joint capital of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for 10 years.
Stating that they were committed to fighting for achieving Special Category Status, he said Mr. Naidu was trying to politicise the issue of three capitals hinted at by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and pointed out that the government wanted to ensure centralised development in all the regions.
He said Mr. Naidu was also conspiring to stall development in the State and instigating people to create legal hurdles by approaching court. He said the people of North Andhra were thankful to Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy for laying stone for a super-speciality hospital at Uddanam, sanctioning tribal engineering college at Parvathipuram, a medical college at Paderu and launching developmental works worth ₹1200 crore in Visakhapatnam.
Mr. Rao said the YSR Congress Party had high respect for farmers and they would not go against the interests of those who gave lands for development of Amaravati. He said they would go ahead with three capitals only after obtaining the approval of the stakeholders and discussing the recommendation of High Power Committee headed by Finance Minister Buganna Rajendranath Reddy.
Stoutly denying insider trading before the proposal mooted to develop Visakhapatnam as the Executive capital in Bheemunipatnam area represented by him in the Assembly, the Minister said they had evidence to prove that Mr. Naidu and people close to him had indulged in insider trading by investing heavily in land acquisition before announcing Amaravati as the capital.
The Minister said they would order a probe by Lok Ayukta, CB-CID or CBI against the ‘wrong-doings’ during Mr. Naidu’s tenure to bring all those guilty to book.
