The AP High Court had already directed the state government to develop Amaravati as capital. The court had ordered the government to develop the layout and hand over the plots to the farmers in three months. The court also directed the government to develop the entire Amaravati capital city in six months.
There were celebrations across the state and even in the US, when the court delivered the judgment. The farmers of Amaravati have thanked the judges by kneeling down along the road when the judges were going home from the court after the judgment.
The expectations were high that Jagan Mohan Reddy would bow down to the judiciary and develop Amaravati as the capital. Though there were some doubts over Jagan’s plans on the capital issue, they believed that nothing goes beyond the high court.
But, the budget came as a rude shock to them when there was no mention of the capital and Amaravati development. Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath completely ignored the capital issue and failed to show any allocation of funds.
This indicates how serious Jagan Mohan Reddy is about the high court direction. Though the chief minister had directed the officials to prepare estimates and work orders as directed by the court, he did not tell the finance minister to show financial allocation in the budget.
As Minister Botsa Satyanarayana was repeatedly saying, the chief minister appears that he would move to Visakhapatnam and shift the administration any time before the 2024 general election.
There are enough indications that Jagan Mohan Reddy would prefer to sit in Visakhapatnam rather than Amaravati. If his party wins again in 2024, it is for sure he would get Visakhapatnam declared as the capital of Andhra Pradesh by amending the AP Reorganisation 2014 act, which says Hyderabad is the common capital for the two Telugu states till 2024.
This attitude of Jagan Mohan Reddy and his refusal to allocate funds in the budget irks the TDP leaders, the media that supports him and the farmers who have been holding protests in Amaravati.
