Trouble seems to be brewing in the Telugu Desam Party which won all the four Assembly seats (east, west, north and south), in the city in the Assembly elections.
Sensing people’s mood, local leaders, including MLAs and MLCs, have welcomed Y.S Jagan Mohan Reddy announcement that Visakhapatnam might be made the Executive capital of the State. This, despite party president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s giving a call to rank and file to oppose the proposal tooth and nail.
On Tuesday, the MLAs, the MLCs and the party’s urban and rural presidents and other senior leaders met at a hotel and broadly welcomed Mr. Jagan’s plan.
S.A. Rehaman, who resigned as urban unit president on Thursday, said party leaders in the city had made it clear in 2014 itself that Vizag should be made the capital as it had the required infrastructure. They had even made a representation to the Sri Krishna Committee in this regard, he added.
“But our suggestion was brushed aside by Mr. Naidu and he went ahead with the Amaravati project. We fell in line at that time as he was our leader,” Dr. Rehaman told The Hindu.
‘Do justice to farmers’
The capital city project failed, mainly due to some hasty decisions and lack of support from the Centre. But in the end, party workers and the people are not happy and the only persons who had benefited were a few leaders close to Mr. Naidu, he alleged.
Dr. Rehaman said that justice needs to be done to the farmers from whom 33,000 acres was taken to build Amaravati.
“The Chief Minister and Mr. Naidu should sit together with the farmers of the Amaravati region and work out a solution. This is an issue beyond party lines, and they should follow Telangana CM K. Chandrsekhar Rao’s example who defused the situation arising out of the RTC strike there to the satisfaction of all,” he said.
