Opinion: The Capital Shenanigans of Andhra Pradesh–Parliament nod for ‘Amaravati’, while ‘MaViGun’ sounds silly

Hyderabad: The capital of Andhra Pradesh has always been a bone of contention between the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the YSR Congress (YSRCP) – the two major political parties in the State, with the lack of consensus and the game of political one-upmanship.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu has always been in favour of a new greenfield capital – Amaravati. At the same time, former Chief Minister and YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy has always been apprehensive about it and tilted towards negating the idea in favour of Visakhapatnam.

What is the Amaravati Capital Bill?

The Lok Sabha, on Wednesday, passed a Bill adopting Amaravati as the Capital of Andhra Pradesh. The bill amended Section 5 (2) of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, as Hyderabad ceased to continue as its Capital in 2024, after the expiry of 10 years of duration as the common capital on March 27, 2026.

The Andhra Pradesh Assembly adopted a resolution to this effect and seeking to make Amaravati its capital and a permanent one at that.

The Rajya Sabha approval would pass the Bill to the President for assent.

How did Jagan counter?

On the same day, Jagan held a press conference and emphatically stated that the ‘lofty plans’ of Naidu regarding Amaravati were impossible to translate into action.

He contended that the enormous Rs 65,000-crore outlay would be impractical and the implementation of the project would become unviable, going by the financial turmoil the State has been reeling under. He came up with another suggestion – a serious one in that – as his ‘Plan B’, through which he bounced the idea of making capital along Machilipatnam-Vijayawada-Guntur.

But, Jagan, in his flow of thoughts, all of a sudden, sarcastically or unwittingly, trivialised his serious proposal by suggesting the corridor could be christened as “MaViGun” (the first letters of all the three cities), inadvertently turning the core issue of the corridor into a butt of jokes.

He was heavily trolled by thousands of TDP supporters for joining the first letters of different cities, making acronyms that gave sleazy meanings in Telugu.

This acronym for the capital suggested by Jagan is not only ridiculous, but unavoidable too. This obviously would lead to the serious proposal he had brought up, which could have been considered by the Chandrababu Naidu-led State Government, in one form or another, has now become anathema by the act of commission by Jagan himself.

Let’s understand the genesis and evolution of the State Capital issue of Andhra Pradesh.

The Capital of Andhra Pradesh has been a controversial issue from day one of the bifurcation of the State in 2014.

Where Chandrababu Naidu bungled?

With enormous trust in his leadership and the belief in the claims he has always been making as the Messiah of developing Hyderabad, the people rallied behind N Chandrababu Naidu, the longest-serving Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

Thanks to the support base of Narendra Modi of the BJP and the tacit support extended by movie actor and president of Jana Sena Party, Pawan Kalyan, who did not enter the poll fray, 2014 turned out to be a watershed year for the TDP.

Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion.

When a huge responsibility of carving a niche for the State and making it a real ‘sunrise State’ was rested on his shoulders, Chandrababu Naidu should have tread an extremely cautious path to achieve the goals systematically.

Instead, he gave rise to a set of serious doubts of ‘insider trading’, as alleged by YS Jaganmohan Reddy, who claimed to have smelt a rat in the land dealings before the announcement of the location of the State capital. He has never backed out on charging the TDP leadership with favouring its ‘cronies’ in the real estate sector, only with an eye on jacking up land prices.

This was totally unavoidable. Naidu should have acted swiftly instead of waiting 10 long months to announce where the capital would be situated. His Cabinet had approved of Amaravati—a conglomerate of 29 villages between Guntur and Vijayawada along the banks of the River Krishna—as the new capital on April 1, 2015—exactly 11 years ago.

Instead of waiting too long for the designs, changing agencies for making the designs and the detailed project report (DPR), bringing in the Singapore consortium, Maki Associates—which walked out of the project blaming Naidu himself—and the Norman Foster of London and attracting criticism over the designs, he should have set up the offices in the available buildings in Vijayawada and Guntur to begin with.

In fact, he began in the right direction by relocating the staff and some offices and paving the way for a functional capital in Vijayawada, Guntur and some places in between. He had some huge facilities, including the office of the Director General of Police, constructed. Eventually, the entire administration was moved to the new capital-in-the-making.

The biggest mistake of Naidu was having the Assembly and Secretariat built at Velagapudi, a village to which access was through an incredibly capillary road and calling them ‘temporary’.

He had pooled land from farmers to an extent of 34,251 acres from 29 villages with a promise that he would, in return, give them developed plots and commercial spaces.

The tardy progress of this activity threw the entire project with lofty ideas into limbo.

People began talking about the graphics and pooh-poohed Naidu for ‘building castles in the air’.

The aftermath of an idea

While YS Jagan had announced that his party was not opposed to the idea of Amaravati as capital, he is said to have mooted the idea of making a corridor from Machilipatnam to Guntur via Vijayawada, at that time itself.

However, this idea was not pressed so much that the government would have yielded to the suggestion from a strong opposition, with 67 MLAs in its kitty.

Chandrababu Naidu, too, on his part, did not seem to be very serious about the Capital and its construction. He delayed the project, perhaps owing to the paucity of funds.

The petulant issues of sharing the assets listed in the ninth and tenth schedules of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, remain knotty and continue to be so.

The Ninth and Tenth Schedules of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, actually deal with the division of assets, liabilities and institutions between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. While the Ninth Schedule lists government companies and corporations like the RTC to be divided, the Tenth Schedule lists training institutions and universities.

Minister for Municipal Administration P Narayana was tasked with the responsibility of having the Amaravati project executed. But, different leaders began making different statements about the capital, even as the farmers kept on waiting for the promised ‘developed spaces’, which remained a pipe dream even to date.

Though Naidu had the foundation for the new capital laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and invited his then colleague, Chief Minister KCR, on October 22, 2015, at a gala function, he left the project in a shambles without taking it to a logical conclusion.

Naidu’s flippant moves

The frivolous attempts to rope in movie directors Krish on one occasion and SS Rajamouli, on the other—taking cue from the Mahishmathi setting in his blockbuster movie, Bahubali—to participate in the design of the new Capital ended up as a joke, exposing his levity.

By then, Jagan had amplified his criticism of the project and impaled the flippant approach of the government in making the capital.

The funds given by the Centre were exhausted for the ‘temporary’ secretariat and ‘temporary’ Assembly, as Naidu himself branded them repeatedly. The exorbitant per square foot cost spent by the Naidu administration on these structures came under fire from many.

Chandrababu Naidu had created a Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA), an urban agglomeration management body vested with the responsibility of making the entire area vibrant with social infrastructure and government activity, and decided on very large contours.

As the project remained a non-starter, with a proposal of having nine cities forming part of the core capital area, the acquired agricultural land that used to yield three crops every year came as a shot in the arm for political critics, agricultural scientists, farmers’ leaders, environmentalists and also economists to grind the proverbial axe against the TDP regime.

Lo and behold! Five years had passed without any tangible progress on the construction of the capital.

Meanwhile, YS Jagan embarked on one of the longest padayatras with a political agenda in India, enlisting a groundswell of support from the people. In the 2019 General Elections, the TDP under Naidu was uprooted lock, stock and barrel.

A year before, the TDP had broken ranks with the BJP and also Jana Sena too entered the poll fray and all the partners of the alliance had contested independently, proving the internecine feud very expensive for all of them.

Jagan’s insouciant approach

Then came the YS Jagan government with a resounding margin winning 151 out of the 175 Assembly seats, restricting the TDP to 23 and Jana Sena to one and the BJP to none.

The future of Amaravati was left in the lurch.

In fact, Jagan had obliquely instilled confidence in the people, especially those in the Krishna-Guntur region, that he would surely complete the capital in all respects and fulfil the promises left unattended to by the Naidu Government.

His no-objection to Amaravati as announced on the floor of the Assembly, and his swift move to build a palatial residence for himself at Tadepalli in the proposed capital region, had raised the hopes of Amaravati farmers of 29 villages who gave 34,241 acres just with the call given by Naidu.

However, Jagan took out a funny idea of three capitals from his ‘magic bag’, which came under sharp criticism from multiple quarters.

While Chandrababu Naidu’s plan for a greenfield capital itself drew flak unabatedly from several fronts, dubbing it as an impracticable proposition, Jagan’s idea of three capitals became indigestible to many.

If Jagan wanted to move the capital to Visakhapatnam, the first thing he should have done was to convince through back-channel negotiations and elicit the view of the judiciary.

Somehow, Jagan could never establish a cordial relationship with the judiciary during his tenure. His government’s controversial letter against Justice NV Ramana, in a bid to prevent his elevation to the post of the Chief Justice of India, snowballed into a controversy that shook the entire nation.

Most of his government’s decisions incurred the wrath of the courts, which struck down most of the moves the government.

Normally, he could have, in fact, held a seminar or workshop with jurists, legal luminaries, advocates, the bar and the bench, taking the Chief Justice and judges into confidence and made a request to them to deliberate upon the proposal to move the High Court to Kurnool. He could have also mooted the idea of moving the Capital to Visakhapatnam.

There would have been a consensus or at least a majority opinion weighing in favour of Visakhapatnam, as functionally it would have been easier for the Legislature, Executive and the Judiciary, which have an invisible and inherent interconnect, to deliver democratic rule to the people.

Jagan goofed up by announcing that Kurnool would be the judicial capital of the State, which, indeed, should have been a decision taken by the High Court with the approval of the Supreme Court of India.

It’s funny that he wanted to retain Amaravati as the legislative capital and move the administrative capital to Visakhapatnam. This was just impractical and it sounded absurd, for executive and legislative set-ups should function hand in glove and be together.

He had announced in global investment summits that he would soon move his base to Visakhapatnam, which would be the new capital.

His biggest challenge cropped up from the dilemma on how to justify the idea of moving the state capital—legislative and administrative—to Visakhapatnam, completely sealing the prospect of Amaravati.

The farmers had already incurred huge financial losses due to the handing over of their landholdings without getting even a penny in return. They launched an agitation, which lasted for five years.

Quaint were the ways Jagan had handled this delicate and most important issue of the State Capital.

Legislative blunders

If Naidu had made a joke of the Capital with impossible plans of nine cities, drawings, consortia, architects and design consultants, Jagan pushed the fate of it into an abyss with his ridiculous, if not ludicrous, idea of three capitals.

He wanted to have a piece of legislation enacted, but the attempts fell flat on his face.

Whether he discusses the pros and cons of any people-centric issues with anyone to formulate ideas and draw up plans is still a proverbial million-dollar question.

With his party’s brute majority, Jagan had the Bill of three capitals passed in the Assembly.

Since the setting up of or moving the capital involved a huge financial commitment, he could have introduced it as a Finance Bill. This would have eliminated the hurdle of passing through the legislative council, where his party did not have a majority.

As even a naive person could guess, it hit a roadblock in the council with the majority of the TDP stalling it by referring it to the select committee.

An avoidable blunder by him and his ‘inexperienced’ team of ministers, advisors, bureaucrats and lawyers. Or, due to the layers he had created around himself, the scope for wise advice remained a mirage.

Committing blunder after blunder apparently became the worst wont of his government on the issue of capital.

Instead of working out the possible backlash and roadblocks, Jagan took the Bill to the Council, which stopped it in its tracks.

He could have left it at that and availed himself of the ‘cooling-off period’ for a few months and, meanwhile, enlisted public support by involving as many stakeholders as possible. Jagan had enjoyed enormous patronage from the BJP bosses in Delhi, especially the Prime Minister, towards whom he had demonstrated a filial respect.

Instead, he brashly chose to do away with the existence of the Upper House, which was revived in the undivided State by his late father Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy, when he was the Chief Minister.

In fact, YSR had done an unexpected favour to the TDP by resurrecting the Upper House, which was dissolved by the NTR Government and the decision was endorsed by the Rajiv Gandhi Government under inevitable circumstances due to the recommendation of the State Assembly.

The Bill to do away with the Council was followed by another blunder by Jagan.

Instead of following it up with the Union Government for its passage in the Parliament, Jagan remained cool to it.

As the vacancies arose every two years, he used it as an opportunity to mollify the disgruntled souls within his party by providing them an opportunity to get elected as MLCs.

With the idea of moving the judicial headquarters to Kurnool not going down well with the judiciary, the entire issue of capital came under judicial scrutiny.

The courts repeatedly warned against any attempt to shift the seat of power to Visakhapatnam.

Resurgence of the TDP

Chandrababu Naidu made all the right moves, leveraging the weakness of Jagan of being unable to displease and distance the SC, ST and Minority vote bank. He mooted the idea of joining hands with the BJP and joining the NDA once again.

Clouds are being cast on the voting pattern correlating from with the data of the Election Commission of India, which highlighted that lakhs of votes were cast in the late hours and each vote took barely six seconds, which became a hot topic of debate, of late, the NDA of the TDP, the BJP and the Jana Sena, romped home with a never before historical majority scoring, all the seats, reducing the YSR Congress to almost to a rubble.

However, the NDA, under the leadership of Chandrababu Naidu, established a strong government in 2024.

Naidu, however, took almost two years again to hurriedly convene an Assembly session and pass a resolution making Amaravati as the permanent capital of Andhra Pradesh. Using his good offices and deriving advantage of his sheer numbers in the Lok Sabha, he could force the BJP to pass the Amendment Bill to the AP Reorganisation Bill in the Parliament.

This could be a ‘dead cat’ technique to divert attention from the voting pattern—that helped the NDA romp home with a huge majority—controversy that is fast catching up in India.

MaViGun timing

Exactly on the day when the Lok Sabha passed the Amendment Bill, YS Jagan chose to convene a press conference and propose the idea of the Machilipatnam-Vijayawada-Guntur corridor as Plan B, clearly dismissing the idea of Amaravati, suggesting that it was impractical.

The name, MaViGun, suggested (he left the door ajar for the government to change it), became a subject of derision and trolling. Has Jagan enjoyed it, as he may be perceiving it to be the ‘dead cat’ from his side?

But, Jagan cleverly raised the issue that anybody who would succeed the TDP (expecting it to be himself), could use the Constitutional provisions to further amend the sections and change the capital. His timing is perfect.

Since the Constitution itself has been amended 106 times so far, changes in political equations in future would open up an opportunity for yet another change. By raising this issue, he ensured he would have an opportunity open to be taken up if at all he comes back to power in the State. For if he had approved of the current Amendment—the YSR Congress members in the Lok Sabha resented it and staged a walkout on April 1—he would never have a chance to change the same in case her assumes the reins of the State.

Was ‘MaViGun’ an idea thrown at the people, a ploy to divert the attention of those in power and their supporters? It conspicuously appears to be so. For the corridor, he suggested building the new capital along the National Highways between Machilipatnam and Vijayawada, and from Vijayawada to Guntur could be considered even without the enactment of an Amendment to the Act. It’s secondary. He just opened a can of worms in the form of proposing a ‘Plan B’ just to prove a point that the latest Amendment is neither air-tight nor can it be meddled with a few years later.

Jagan also raised the issue that only the nation would have a Capital and the States would not. This is right.

What does the Constitution actually say?

It defines states and their territories under Articles 1–4.

It provides for:

- State Legislatures (Articles 168 onwards)

- Governors (Article 153)

- High Courts (Article 214)

But nowhere does it say that a state must have a capital, or specify what/where it should be.

Then how are capitals decided?

State capitals are determined through:

- Ordinary laws passed by Parliament or State Legislatures

- Executive decisions of the government

- Historical and administrative convenience

Examples:

1. When states are reorganised (like under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956), capitals are decided politically/administratively, not constitutionally mandated.

2. In cases like Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation, capital decisions (Hyderabad, Amaravati, etc.) came through legislation and government notification—not a Constitutional article.

Leaders must keep the State interest as ultimately sacred while making any decision, for the Andhra Pradesh capital is still a debatable issue and it cannot remain so perennially.

The views and opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of NewsMeter.