The open announcement made by YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in New Delhi that Visakhapatnam is going to be the capital of the state in the days to come has surprised many and drawn criticism from his detractors.
But sources close to powers-that-be said Jagan is pretty confident that he would get a positive order from the Supreme Court, which is going to hear a special leave petition filed by the government.
Apparently, senior counsels of the state government in the Supreme Court gave an indication to the chief minister that the apex court might grant a stay on the high court judgement declaring Amaravati as the only capital of the state and saying the state had no legislative competence to pass the three capitals bill.
Such was the confidence of the Jagan government that there were some leaks to a section of media from the power corridors on January 31 that the Supreme Court had granted stay on the high court judgement.
A couple of news channels even flashed the news about the stay order, but soon they withdrew the flash news, after coming to know that the issue was not listed for hearing at all and hearing has been deferred to February 7.
Yet, the Jagan government is extremely confident that it would get a favourable order from the Supreme Court during the next hearing. That is precisely why every leader is talking on shifting of capital to Visakhapatnam sooner or later.
What will the state government do, in case the Supreme Court refuses to stay the high court judgement or endorses the same or even dodges the case for a few more months because of the litigations?
It is learnt the Jagan government has also Plan-B ready for the same. While continuing the legal battle, the state government would bring pressure on the Centre to amend AP Reorganisation Act to replace the word “a capital” with “one or more capitals” so as to make way for the three capitals formation.
This was hinted at by former minister Kodali Nani, who said the state government would bring pressure on the centre to get the amendment done so as to get clearance for the three capital or pass a legislation empowering the state assembly to decide on the location of capitals.