Amid the ongoing row of three capitals, on Monday, Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy announced that the state will have only one capital, that is, Amaravati.
With this announcement, the state cabinet made a decision to withdraw the Three Capitals Bill and informed this decision to the high court.
The current YSRCP government has proposed three different capitals for the AP state. Those are Amaravati, Visakapatnam, and Kurnool as legislative, executive, and judicial capitals respectively.
Last year, the Union Home Ministry had informed the AP High Court that the capital city of the state internal matter of the state government and the Central government had no role in it.
In a case between petitioner Potluri Srinivasa Rao and respondents Union of India and others files in 2018, under-secretary in the Union Home Ministry Lalita T. Hedaoo filed a counter affidavit in the High court of Andhra Pradesh.
The counter-affidavit mentioned that under section 6 of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, the Union Government had constituted a committee on 28th March 2014 under the K.C. Sivaramakrishnan chairmanship to provide alternatives in the case of new capital for the Andhra Pradesh state.
This panel submitted its report on 30th August of the same year, and two days later it was sent to the AP government on 1st September. The affidavit mentioned that the state government issued an order notifying the capital city to be named as ‘Amaravati’. It further said that the capital city of a state is decided by the respective state government and the central government has nothing to do with it.
The affidavit also mentioned the AP government through the Andhra Pradesh Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, 2020 has provided that there shall be three seats of governance in the state and they are to be called capitals. As per it, Amaravati Metropolitan Region Development Area, Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Area, and Kurnool Urban Development Area to be called Legislative Capital, Executive Capital, and Judicial Capital respectively.
Meanwhile, last week, Andhra Pradesh BJP leader YS Chowdary said that his party supports the demand of declaring Amaravati as Andhra Pradesh’s capital city.
Chowdary said, “On behalf of BJP, we have passed a resolution for supporting Amaravati as the Andhra Pradesh capital. BJP supports the local farmers who gave land for the capital development and will see that Amaravati as Capital.”
He further added, “We demand from CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy that the Amaravati shall be remained as the capital according to the unanimous decision in the assembly by all parties prior to 2019.”