VIJAYAWADA: Taking serious exception to the ‘TDP-backed’ Maha Padayatra of Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi (APS), Revenue Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao questioned why should they remain silent when padayatras are being taken out opposing Visakhapatnam as the executive capital.
Addressing press conference in Srikakulam on Monday, Dharmana asked the Opposition as to why they want people of Uttarandhra to remain backward and its people confined themselves to working as migrant workers.Asserting that decentralised administration and development policy of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is the right one for the State, he sought to know why TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu failed to learn a lesson from Hyderabad.
“Should we applaud when the value of land in Amaravati, which is in the hands of a few influential persons, increases, while the value of land in the rest of the State remains as it is with no rise?” the Revenue Minister asked.
Lashing out at TDP for trying to project Amaravati as a State problem, he said the Opposition and those supporting it were manipulating media to project the yatra taken out by a few as a farmers’ struggle.
During a marathon discussion on the capital region issue in the State Assembly, he had explained in depth what it means to be a capital and underlined the need for a share in development to backward regions of the State.
“Centralised and concentrated development for 65 years in Hyderabad has denied development to other regions and post bifurcation of the State, people of Andhra Pradesh have been pushed back in development. Had there been decentralised development in the composite Andhra Pradesh, the present issue would not have arisen. But today, TDP is dead set to continue the same as Naidu is only worried about the properties of his and his supporters in Amaravati,” he deplored.
Addressing mediapersons in Kakinada, former Agriculture minister Kurasala Kanna Babu dismissed ‘Amaravati to Arasavalli Yatra’ as a political yatra with vested interests. “The main concern of the TDP chief, who is behind it is to safeguard his real estate interests and nothing else. Cheated by TDP, people taught Naidu a lesson in 2019, but the Opposition failed to learn a lesson,” he observed.
He took exception to Congress leader Renuka Chowdary’s comments while extending support to Amaravati farmers’ Maha Padayatra, Kanna Babu demanded to know where was she when Naidu pledged the State interests for the special package in lieu of Special Category Status.
“We will not remain silent, if the interests of the other regions in the State are ignored to benefit a few. Our government is determined to ensure equal development of all the regions,” he asserted. Jagan did more to farmers of Amaravati than Naidu and the real farmers of Amaravati will teach a fitting lesson to the TDP chief, he averred.