Centre has no role in deciding a state's capital city: Union government files affidavit in AP HC

By Newsmeter Network  Published on  6 Aug 2020 9:38 AM GMT
Centre has no role in deciding a states capital city: Union government files affidavit in AP HC

Vijayawada: In a jolt to the TDP and other Opposition parties in AP, who have been opposing the YSRCP government’s decision on trifurcation of the capital, the Union government in an affidavit filed before the AP High Court mentioned that capital of a state is decided by the respective state government and that the central government has no role in it.

Further, the Union government contended that it was the privilege of a state to decide the location of its capital city. The Union government filed the counter affidavit following the affidavit filed by the some activists against the trifurcation of the capital in Andhra Pradesh.

With the counter affidavit, it has now become clear that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government will not interfere into the YSRCP government’s decision to shift the administrative capital of the state from Amaravati to Vizag.

The Union government’s counter affidavit comes in the wake of Andhra Pradesh High Court’s directive to the YSRCP government to maintain status quo till August 14 on shifting of the capital from Amaravati to Vizag. The Union government’s affidavit exposed the BJP’s clear stand on the capital issue.

The Ministry of Home Affairs said that it has respectfully submitted under Section 6 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, that the central government had constituted an expert committee on March 28, 2014, under the chairmanship of retired IAS officer K.C. Sivaramakrishnan to study alternatives for a new capital for Andhra Pradesh. The committee submitted its report on August 30, 2014, which was sent to Government of Andhra Pradesh on September 1, 2014.

Subsequently, Andhra Pradesh government vide Government Order on April 23, 2015, notified that the capital city be named as Amaravati.

The BJP had passed a political resolution in favour of Amaravati as the capital of Andhra Pradesh and the Union government had sanctioned Rs 2,500 crore for the project and an amount of Rs 1,500 crore had already been released. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone for the new capital city, Amaravati, at Uddandarayunipalem village in Guntur district.

The state unit of BJP, led by president Somu Veerraju, said that as a principle, BJP had always favoured decentralisation of administration.

BJP national spokesperson and MP G.V.L. Narasimha Rao had been contending that the Centre would never intervene into the issue of capital city of AP. The BJP also promised to relocate the High Court to Rayalaseema in its manifesto.

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