If YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has his way, Machilipatnam, which is presently the capital of Krishna district, would soon become a district and be renamed as “Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao district.”
The proposal for reorganisation of existing 13 districts into 26 districts has been readied and is likely to be approved by the Jagan government in a day or two. The notification on the new districts might be issued this week.
As announced earlier, the Jagan government would convert each parliamentary constituency into one district. Accordingly, there should be 25 districts in the state. However, Araku parliamentary constituency which is the largest in the state, would be divided into two. So, there would be 26 districts.
The interesting aspect of this reorganiation of the districts is renaming of Machlipatnam after legendary actor and former chief minister N T Rama Rao, on the lines of renaming Kadapa district after former chief minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.
Obviously, Jagan would be scoring brownie points over the Telugu Desam Party headed by N Chandrababu Naidu by renaming Machilipatnam as NTR district.
The decision comes at a time when the Telugu people would be celebrating the centenary year of NTR and it would definitely fetch big mileage to Jagan.
The TDP won’t have much to criticise the YSRC, as it would only backfire on Naidu.
In fact, the question would arise as to why Naidu had not thought of naming one of the districts after NTR, when he was in power during the combined AP regime between 1995 and 2004.
Jagan’s decision would definitely attract the die-hard fans of NTR and a large section of Kamma voters, in the wake of the talk that the YSRC chief is targeting their community.
“He is also likely to make a strong recommendation to the Centre for awarding Bharat Ratna to NTR on the occasion of his birth centenary celebrations. That would completely silence the TDP and Naidu,” sources said.
In fact, Jagan made this promise of renaming Krishna district as NTR district, during his Praja Sankalpa Yatra at NTR’s native village Nimmakuru in April 2018. It evoked huge response from NTR’s fans and relatives in the district.
However, the TDP, which was in power, described it as a political gimmick. It also encouraged a few farmers’ unions to oppose renaming of Krishna district after NTR, says Krishna river has a sentimental value for them.
Now, Jagan wants to rename Machilipatnam as NTR district, because NTR’s native village Nimmakuru falls in this parliamentary constituency; and retain Krishna district’s original name for the remaining part of the district.
Jagan also might announce development of Nimmakuru as a big tourist spot by establishing an NTR museum there. This would be the last nail in Naidu’s coffin!