The first address to the joint meeting of the Andhra Pradesh state assembly and council made by Governor Abdul Nazir on the commencement of the state budget session on Tuesday had no mention of the shift of the administrative capital from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam.
Everybody was expected that the Governor would definitely raise point of decentralized administration, if not formation of three capitals directly, in his speech, especially in the wake of the recent statements from the government.
While chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy openly announced that Visakhapatnam would soon be made into an executive capital and he, too, would be moving there in the next few days, his cabinet colleagues have been making statements on the capital shift day in and day out.
There has been a talk that Jagan might move his office to Visakhapatnam by April, if not on March 22, the Ugadi day. In fact, industries minister Gudivada Amarnath declared that the government would operate from Visakhapatnam by next academic year.
So, it was nothing but natural to expect that there would be a mention of the capital shift in the Governor’s address. However, he did not make any metion of the same, let alone decentralization of administration.
Apparently, the Jagan government might have thought any reference to capital shift in the Governor’s address might draw the contempt of court, as the issue is already pending before the Supreme Court and is expected to come up for hearing on March 28.
So, Abdul Nazir confined himself to praising the Jagan government for its achievements in various sectors, apart from implementing the welfare agenda and that the state has taken a step forward in economic development and is making remarkable progress in the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors.