The long-awaited proposal of establishing a steel plant at Kadapa is going to materialise within next three years, thanks to the steely resolve of YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Though the project was part of the promises made under AP Reorganisation Act, the Centre has been turning a blind eye to the demand all these years and the previous Telugu Desam Party government could not achieve the demand despite repeated appeals to the Centre.
At the fag of his term, TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, with an eye on garnering votes, laid foundation stone for the Kadapa steel plant without signing any agreement for supply of ore or the other requirements like water and power supply.
Now, Jagan has gone about in a systematic manner. He not only got the ore linkage agreement signed with National Mineral Development Corporation, but also got a tie-up with a France-based company to set up a high-grade steel manufacturing plant at Jamamlamadugu.
And Jagan vowed to complete the steel project within three years, while laying foundation stone for the project on Monday.
Such a significant development could not be ignored by the media, including the anti-establishment media houses.
For Sakshi it was obviously the big banner story, while Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy also gave huge coverage to the news prominently, most importantly, Jagan’s statement that he would complete the steel plant within three years.
Eenadu, however, highlighted Jagan’s statement at the event that his government was totally opposed to implementation of National Register of Citizens in the state. In fact, the statement was given a lot of importance in the national media as well, with many Delhi-based dailies carrying it prominently on the front page.
Of course, the other two major Telugu newspapers, too, carried it but as a supplementary story. It is an interesting political development with regard to the YSR Congress party and it remains to be seen how the Bharatiya Janata Party will react to the same.
Simultaneously, the continued agitation across the country against CAA also continued to figure in the mainstream media.
The agitation by farmers of Amaravati capital region in protest against shifting of executive capital from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam continued to make headlines in the anti-establishment papers.
Since the TDP president made a lightning visit to Amaravati, took part in the agitations and made a scathing attack on the Jagan government for allegedly destroying his dream capital, it was obviously a big news for Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy. Both the papers not only blew the agitation out of proportion, but also gave huge coverage to Naidu’s meeting at Thulluru on the front page.
Andhra Jyothy went a step ahead and carried a speculative news that Prime Minister’s Office is constantly monitoring the situation in Amaravati and obtained reports form the intelligence department on the proposed capital shift plan.
At the same time, it also published another negative story on how the people of Krishna and Guntur districts are agitated over the three-capitals plan.
The debacle to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Jharkhand assembly elections and impressive victory by Jharkhand Mukthi Morcha (JMM) was also a big news of the day for the Telugu newspapers, for the simple reason that it will have adverse impact on the saffron party which is trying to gain ground in the Telugu states.