VIJAYAWADA: Without responding to ‘Visakha Garjana’ call given by the newly formed JAC for three capitals, TDP State president K Atchannaidu demanded that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy dissolve the Assembly and seek a fresh mandate on the three-capital proposal as a referendum if he is keen on it. Speaking to newsmen at TDP headquarters in Mangalagiri on Monday, he said TDP always stands by its word and had gone to the electorate in 2019 with Amaravati as the capital and in 2024 too the party would go to the voters again with the same issue.
Accusing the Chief Minister, his Cabinet colleagues and other YSRC leaders of spewing venom on Amaravati farmers for taking out Maha Padayatra, the TDP State president said, “Ever since Jagan came to power, he has been adopting diversionary tactics whenever there is animosity against him among people. Despite all this, Jagan is still facing stiff resistance from the public for his anti-people policies.”
He claimed that while former chief minister NT Rama Rao was the brain behind the decentralisation, his successor N Chandrababu Naidu, continued it. During the TDP regime, the administration was taken to the people in the name of ‘Prajala Vaddaku Palana’ (administration at the doorstep of the people), he explained.
Asserting that Visakhapatnam was upgraded as the city of technology and industries were set up in all the districts in the State from Srikakulam to Chittoor during the tenure of the previous TDP, he charged that except creating deep differences among various sections of people across the State Jagan did nothing for the development of Andhra Pradesh in the past three-and-a-half years.
Both the Supreme Court and the High Court had made it clear that if the capital needs to be shifted, the Constitution should be amended, Atchannaidu said and pointed out that none other than YSRC MP V Vijayasai Reddy had introduced a private member bill in Parliament seeking powers to the State government for setting up three capitals. Seeking to know why YSRC leaders are demanding his resignation, Atchannaidu felt that in fact, the YSRC leaders should quit their posts as they failed to fulfil promises made to the people.
Ministers Botcha Satyanarayana and Dharmana Prasada Rao and Assembly Speaker Tammineni Sitaram used to take people for a ride. These Uttarandhra leaders should recollect what they said earlier and how they changed tack now, he ridiculed.
Atchannaidu demanded that the land grabbing by Jagan and members of his gang be investigated by the CBI as they had grabbed 40,000 acres in Visakhapatnam alone. The people of North Coastal Andhra should raise the demand of ‘Save Uttarandhra’ from YSRC, the State TDP chief said, demanding that Jagan go to the electorate again after dissolving the Assembly if he is really committed to democracy.