It’s a double whammy for Jagan Reddy and his YSRCP. Trouble’s brewing for him and his party, ahead of next year’s state elections. Recent ‘graduate’ MLC elections as well as ‘MLA quota’ MLC elections have exposed chinks in the hitherto tough armor of the YSRCP.
The opposition TDP party managed to spring electoral surprises with a handful of unexpected wins amongst speculations of an anti-YSRCP wave in the state, infighting among the ranks, a trust deficit among the party’s leaders, and bold cross-voting for the opposition’s candidates in a recent MLC election, followed by Nellore YSRCP rebel Sridhar Reddy and his brother Giridhar Reddy officially joining the TDP party, last week. Lately, rumours of a few possible defections have also been plaguing the party.
SC Rejects Jagan Reddy Government’s Plea For Three Capitals
While the YSRCP was beginning to take stock of ground realities and challenges ahead of next year’s elections, the Supreme Court (SC) has dealt another blow to its collective confidence and morale. The top Court of the country has refused to accept the Jagan Reddy government’s plea for an overhaul of the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s verdict against the government’s grandiose albeit impractical idea of three capitals for the state. The high court had, in March of last year, ruled in favour of the proposed single capital city of “Amaravathi” near the Vijayawada-Guntur region, envisioned by the previous TDP government, the arch-political nemesis of the current government.
The proposed new city of Amaravathi by the previous chief minister and TDP leader, N Chandrababu Naidu had widely received support from the people of the state as they trusted his vision of a new, modern, efficient, smart city built with the help of experts from nations like Singapore. The people of the state trusted his vision for a world-class Indian state capital for Andhra, as Chandrababu Naidu had previously proven himself to be a visionary, a good administrator, and a man capable of bringing business development to the state, in his earlier stints as chief minister of the larger, undivided state of Andhra Pradesh, now divided into Telangana and the residual Andhra. Naidu is widely accepted and credited across both Telugu states for his modern vision of Hyderabad and his proven ability in bringing top businesses to the city and state.
Amaravathi
Naidu’s search for a new capital city for a new state led him to consider ‘Amaravathi’, with its ancient and historic Buddhist and Hindu heritage. However, he needed to acquire land around it to build a modern city on the lines of Singapore and Hong Kong. Apart from small tracts of government/public land in and around Amaravathi, the lands surrounding it were fertile agricultural fields belonging to the farmers of the region, both big and small. Naidu’s ingenious plan of convincing the farmers to sacrifice some of their lands for the development of a state capital… in return for a fair annual “rental” income from the state and a share in the city’s future earnings, made him a leader able to accomplish a unique private-public partnership in the development of a brand new capital city of grand proportions.
The foundation stone for the capital city was laid by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in January 2018. A blueprint was drawn up and development work was well underway along with the expansion of the Vijayawada airport when he unexpectedly lost the 2019 election to Jagan Reddy’s YSRCP. Since taking over in 2019, many have criticised Reddy for what appears to be a personal vendetta to dismantle the work already completed in the newly established capital city of Amaravathi. The High Court complex was completed in record time, several accommodations for government officials were either already built or close to completion, and many roads were already laid out with more infrastructure en route to completion. However, Reddy insisted on discontinuing the ambitious project of the state’s previous chief minister and announced the shifting of an already established capital at a massive cost to the new state’s exchequer.
Court Sides With Farmers And Ordinary Citizens
When he was questioned on it, he came up with an impractical three-capital theory- one each for the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of the government in three different corners of Andhra Pradesh (Amaravathi, Visakhapatnam, and Kurnool respectively), citing equitable development. Most people questioned his personal and political motives against an impractical proposal. Additionally, ordinary citizens and farmers of the Amaravati region that had already sacrificed their lands for the state’s capital and signed a legally binding agreement with the state government rebelled against a change of plans. Thousands of ordinary people that had lost their lands in good faith to an Indian state, filed several cases against the YSRCP government and appealed strongly against Reddy’s three-capital theory and implementation.
Since their first case in the courts, ordinary citizens have been winning their appeals in the A.P High Court, considering the sensitive humanitarian issues involved and Legal Implications of the cases involving the fundamental rights of citizens and the disqualification or dishonouring of legally binding documents signed by both the citizens and the state government.
A Personal Embarrassment
As Jagan Reddy and his YSRCP try to get their house in order before next year’s state elections, the Supreme Court’s refusal in considering their three-capital appeal is yet another significant setback. The top court has postponed the case to July and has made it clear that they would like to hear the government’s case in the context of the farmers’ cases opposing it. This is somewhat of a personal embarrassment to Jagan Reddy who had recently announced that the capital would be moved soon and that he would start working from Visakhapatnam, the proposed capital for the state’s executive branch, from July onwards.
While the TDP won the new bifurcated AP state elections in 2014, it lost the 2019 elections to the YSRCP, which rode to power on a large wave of welfare scheme promises and consolidation of the minority vote. Jagan Reddy is famous for his 2019 electoral one-liner “give me one just chance”. The people gave him his first chance but his relative lack of experience in a state’s administration, financial management, and budget balancing, has resulted in much criticism and discontent across the state. Jagan Reddy’s 2019 battle cry “give me one chance” is now something of a satirical expression with opposition leaders in A.P and Telangana using the same tagline in their election rallies, in an appeal to defeat the incumbent governments in both states.
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