Andhra Pradesh: Amid Continued Protests, Assembly Passes Bill To Divide State Capital Into Three Parts

The Andhra Pradesh stat legislative assembly on Monday (20 January) night passed the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020 aiming at implementing state government’s plan of having three capitals in the state.

The three capitals will house three crucial state machineries -- executive capital in Visakhapatnam, legislative in Amaravati and judicial in Kurnool, Hindustan Times reported.

The move came even as hundreds of farmers and women in Amaravati have been protesting against the capital being shifted from the region. The protestors defied prohibitory orders and tried to reach the state legislature complex, before being lathi-charged by the police.

For more than a month, farmers in all 29 villages of Amaravati have been staging protests, demanding that Amaravati be retained as the only capital. The farmers had given 33,000 acres of land for development of Amaravati as the state capital in 2015.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president and Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu termed Monday as a black day for the state, alleging that the Chief Minister was destroying the dream capital of people to settle political scores with him.

The bill, which was passed despite strong opposition from the TDP MLAs, proposes to divide the state into different zones and to setup zonal planning and development boards. System of village and (municipal) ward secretariats which was brought in by the Jagan-government earlier in October last year has also gotten statutory backing after being made part of this bill.