VIJAYAWADA: Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan demanded Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and YSRC MLAs from Krishna and Guntur districts to resign and protest for ensuring justice to poor farmers of Amaravati, who parted with their lands for the Capital city.
Addressing the party’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) meeting through teleconference, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan said MLAs of both the parties should fight for the rights of Amaravati farmers, if they are sincere. “If we had been part of the legislative process, we would have been the first to resign. From the beginning till the present agitation to save Amaravati, we have been with the farmers,” he said.
Kalyan said his party did not want to speak politics at a time when the State was facing a crisis in the form of COVID-19. However, the ruling government seems to be the least bothered about it and is creating problems for people in the name of the capital, he added
“The State is facing financial problems and the government has given up addressing the crisis. To divert people’s attention, it brought the decentralisation issue to the fore,” he said and suspected it could also be for settling scores with its opponents. He said, “Capitals are not shifted based on mere personal agenda and decisions.”
BJP leaders too have opined that Amaravati should be the Capital. “Even Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, when I met her, said the World Bank came forward to fund Amaravati, but the government was reluctant,” he explained.
Recalling his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, the Jana Sena chief said Modi explained about how Gandhi Nagar was developed as the capital over a period of 25 years after the State got divided from Maharashtra.
“The TDP initially went for 2,500 to 3,000 acres of land to construct the capital and denotified forest land for the purpose, but later it increased the land requirement to 30,000 and then to 40,000 acres. It took land through land pooling schemes and forcefully acquired from those, who did not agree to part with their land. The farmers believing both ruling and opposition parties okayed the proposal, now they are the ruing the fact,” he said, while recalling that land issues were one of the reasons for the Telangana movement.
Jana Sena leaders, including Nadendla Manohar, Nagababu, Thota Chandrasekhar, T Sivashankar, Satya Bollisetty and others spoke. It was also decided to discuss with judiciary experts and others on Andhra Pradesh capital decentralisation.
Earlier, two-minute silence was observed to mourn the deceased in the HSL accident.