The week-long padayatra by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the villages of Amaravati capital region in Andhra Pradesh to express their solidarity with the farmers will conclude on Thursday.
The BJP leaders are planning to hold a big public meeting at Thullur as a culmination of their padayatra with thousands of party workers, apart from mobilising considerable crowds.
Though the padayatra was conducted by the BJP’s Guntur unit, several state-level party leaders including Somu Veerraju, G V L Narasimha Rao, Kanna Lakshminaryana and others are expected to participate in the meeting.
Now, all eyes are on the party as to what message it is going to send from the meeting – both to the party’s national leadership and also to the farmers of Amaravati.
The BJP leaders have been saying that they would support the capital city at Amaravati, but they have not openly denounced the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s plan for three capitals.
So, it will be interesting to see whether the BJP will declare its policy against the three capitals at its Thullur meeting.
Sources close to the BJP said so far, no project for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid foundation stone was abandoned in the last eight years.
“If Amaravati capital city is not constructed, it will be the first project for which Modi laid the stone, that will not materialise. So, it is a matter of prestige for the BJP and Modi as well,” the sources said.
The BJP leaders are expected to raise this point at their public meeting and it will give a big boost to the Amaravati farmers. But whether it will yield any political mileage to the party remains to be seen.