The controversy over the shifting of administrative capital of Andhra Pradesh from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam is reaching climax.
The agitation of Amaravati farmers, spearheaded by the Telugu Desam Party and supported by other opposition parties, is getting intensified with every passing day to stall the capital shift.
After staging dharnas and conducting rallies, the protestors are now gearing up for Chalo Assembly rally, apart from knocking the doors of the high court.
On the other hand, the YSR Congress party government led by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is swiftly making preparations to move the capital to Visakhapatnam.
The high-power committee of the ministers submitted its report to Jagan on Friday afternoon and the state cabinet will approve the same on Monday, an hour before the commencement of the state assembly session to take a final call on the capital move.
Just like the moves and counter-moves of the Amaravati farmers and the Jagan government, the media houses, too, have been divided into pro-Amaravati and anti-Amaravati groups.
For the last one month, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy have taken up cudgels on behalf of Amaravati and have been accusing the Jagan government of destroying the dreams of thousands of farmers by systematically running a negative campaign against Amaravati.
Similarly, Sakshi has been dishing out stories after stories to show Amaravati is unfit to be developed into the capital city and allege that it was nothing but a real estate venture floated by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu during his regime.
On Saturday, too, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy dedicated huge space to highlight the farmers’ agitation apart from running stories on the potential of Amaravati to emerge as the world class capital city.
Of course, both the dailies have also carried reports on the proposed cabinet meeting and the high court’s reprimand to the police for their excesses against the agitating Amaravati farmers.
Interestingly, these two dailies also carried stories on Jagan’s plans as their banner stories.
Eenadu’s story is on Jagan’s assurances to the farmers of Amaravati that no injustice would be done to them, while Andhra Jyothy’s story quoted Jagan categorically declaring that Visakhapatnam is going to be the real capital and that he would come to the rescue of real farmers of Amaravati. Sakshi also carried the same report as a second lead story.
Sakshi, which has been carrying a series of stories on the negative aspects of Amaravati as the capital all these days, has once again come up with a banner story indicating the actual reason for the Jagan government to take the decision on capital shift: alleged purchase of lands on a large scale by Naidu, his “benamis” and the TDP leaders in and around Amaravati between June and December of 2014 through insider trading.
In fact, there is nothing new in the allegations, as the ministerial committee headed by Buggana Rajendranath has already given a report on the same.
Now, Sakshi’s latest story is on the report of the CID investigation into the insider trading. It also indicated that the names of the beneficiaries of this insider trading would be exposed on Sunday.
The ongoing hearing on the CBI and ED chargesheets against Jagan in the Nampally court, which rejected his various petitions on Friday, has naturally hit the headlines in Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy. The story is expectedly missing in Sakshi.