Will Visakhapatnam Become Andhra Pradesh’s New Capital?
During an event Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced that soon Visakhapatam will be the new capital of the state.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, on 31st January 2023 was attending an event in Delhi. During the event in his speech he said that Andhra Pradesh will shift its capital to Visakhapatnam. Amaravati is the present capital of Andhra Pradesh. He said, “Here I am to invite you to Visakhapatnam, which will be our capital in the coming days. I invite you and your colleagues to see for yourself how easy it is to do business in Andhra Pradesh. I myself would also be shifting to Visakhapatnam in the coming months,”
When Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, Telangana had Hyderabad as its capital and Andhra Pradesh used the same capital for sometime. The Andhra government in 2015 led by TDP's N Chandrababu Naidu, had declared Amaravati as the new capital. Then in 2019 YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, became the Chief Minister. Then in 2020, he planned to have three capital cities — Visakhapatnam for the executive, Amaravati for the legislature, and Kurnool for the judiciary. Amaravati has been at the centre of an alleged land scam, for which Reddy's party has demanded a probe against the previous chief minister, Naidu, stating that some people were told in advance about the location of the new capital. These people then had bought land there to benefit from an imminent boom.
In March 2022 the Andhra Pradesh High Court ruled against the plan to have three capitals and told the government to develop Amaravati. In November 202 the state repealed the law that intended to establish three capital cities and promised a 'comprehensive, complete and better' proposal. However, in a twist, the Supreme Court then stayed that judgment, noting 'courts are not governments'. The case is still pending in the Supreme Court. Despite the decision being pending in the court, this is the first time CM has openly in a public forum announced that Vishakhpatam will be the capital in future. We will have to wait and watch till the Supreme Court’s decision.
