Amaravati Farmers End Four-Year Protest Following Naidu’s Return to Power in Andhra Pradesh

With the formation of the Chandrababu Naidu-led government in Andhra Pradesh, farmers from Amaravati called off their four-year-long protest against the previous YSR Congress government’s three capitals move on Wednesday.

Following the swearing-in ceremony of Naidu and his Council of Ministers in Vijayawada, farmers dismantled their protest camps in the villages. The farmers, including women, had been protesting for 1,631 days, demanding that Amaravati be developed as the sole capital of Andhra Pradesh.

The protest began in December 2019 after Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy announced his government’s plan to develop three state capitals, reversing the previous TDP government’s decision to establish Amaravati as the only state capital. The YSR Congress government proposed Visakhapatnam as the administrative capital, Kurnool as the judicial capital, and Amaravati solely as the legislative capital.

Farmers from 29 villages, who had given 33,000 acres of their land under a land pooling system during the TDP’s tenure, took to the streets and continued their protest in various forms. The Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi (APS), which led the movement against the three capitals, organized two padyatras over the past two years to garner public support for their cause.

Earlier in the day, farmers watched the live telecast of Chandrababu Naidu and his Cabinet’s swearing-in ceremony on specially installed screens. At a meeting of newly elected MLAs of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Tuesday, Naidu announced that Amaravati would be developed as the sole state capital. He added that Visakhapatnam would be developed as a financial capital, and Kurnool would also undergo significant development.

TDP’s allies, Jana Sena and BJP, also support the development of Amaravati as the sole state capital.

Naidu’s return to power has rekindled hope among the farmers and others who were advocating for Amaravati. About a decade ago, the TDP chief envisioned Amaravati on the banks of the Krishna river as a dream capital and a world-class city. However, the development of residential quarters and other components of the project halted abruptly in 2019 after the YSRCP came to power.

The foundation stone for Amaravati was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2015 when the TDP was part of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. Naidu had commissioned Singapore to prepare the master plan for Amaravati, which included nine theme cities and 27 townships planned over an area of 217 square kilometers, to be developed in three phases: seed area or core capital, capital city, and capital region.