BJP State president Kanna Lakshminarayana strongly objected to the concept of changing capital cities whenever a new party came to power and insisted that the proposal to have three capitals has driven away potential investors who had considered Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) a safe bet till the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) formed the government.

Mr. Lakshminarayana questioned where was the guarantee that a future government would not put the State in the reverse gear by shifting the capital to a place of its choice, hoping that wiser counsel would prevail on Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy at least now.

Expressing solidarity with the farmers whose protest against the shifting of capital completed 75 days, at Thullur in Guntur district on Sunday, he said the people of Visakhapatnam did not want the capital to be shifted to the port city as they feared that large-scale land grabbing would take place in the name of development.

The capital shift was a problem not confined to the 29 capital villages but it has serious ramifications in the future. The BJP stood for a single capital in Amaravati and Mr. Jagan would do well to understand that it (BJP) did not see any political mileage in the issue, he observed.

Joint plan of action

Mr. Lakshminarayana said the BJP and the Jana Sena Party would soon announce their course of action and accused both the YSRCP and the TDP of cheating people. It was unfortunate that Mr. Jagan did not respond to the plight of thousands of farmers who gave their land for the construction of the capital in Amaravati.

The State BJP chief said there was nothing positive about the nine-month rule of YSRCP as the CM was practising “politics of vengeance” and was least bothered about development. He deprived people of various benefits and created much hype about ‘Navaratnalu’ for which funds were being diverted from development schemes.

Corruption had increased a lot notwithstanding the CM’s impressive rhetoric that he would transform A.P. into a corruption-free State, Mr. Lakshminarayana added.

Former Ministers Kamineni Srinivas, Ravela Kishore Babu and Sanakkayala Aruna were among those present.