VIJAYAWADA: BJP leader and former Chief Secretary IYR Krishna Rao on Friday squarely blamed TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu for the present capital crisis. Speaking to media persons, he said as the Chief Minister of the State soon after bifurcation, Naidu failed to achieve consensus on the issue of capital and went ahead with his grand designs. Now, his successor Jagan Mohan Reddy had even destroyed what little progress was made with regard to the capital city. The capital city issue has been a controversy since 1953 when Telugu-speaking region of Andhra was bifurcated from Madras Presidency and the first linguistic based State was formed.
During that time even leaders like Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu could not reach consensus on the issue of capital city. Elders like Gouthu Latchanna backed Guntur as capital city and Kurnool as the seat of High Court. However, the same could not be implemented, the former CS recounted.
Rao said Naidu took up the capital city project though he was well aware that construction of such a massive project at a stretch was not possible. He found fault with Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy for putting an abrupt end to capital city project and even discontinuing the works under progress.“If Amaravati was allowed to continue as the capital without any change and Visakhapatnam was developed as a metropolitan city, there would not have been any problem.” Rao opined.
He maintained that from the beginning BJP has been demanding setting up of High Court in Kurnool and development of Visakhapatnam on the lines of Mumbai. The retired bureaucrat clarified that only the executive capital is deemed as the real capital. “The three-capital concept itself is wrong,” he asserted.
The former Chief Secretary clarified that in his book on Amaravati, he never stated that Amaravati should not be the capital and only mentioned that development of a mega capital within a short time is not possible.