Amidst tensions surrounding the pending proposal to decentralise Amaravati, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh, some members of the Telugu NRI community in the United States has expressed its support for the farmers protesting in the state.
Farmers, who have given their land for development of Amaravati as the state capital, have been on a protest for the past few weeks, opposing the Jagan-led YSRCP state government’s move to relocate it.
Holding banners and placards, protesters in Chantilly, Virginia opposed the government’s new proposal. Placards with “One state, one capital”, “Jai Amaravati, Save Amaravati” can be seen in visuals of the protests.
Several members of the Telugu NRI community turned up at the protest to show their support for retaining Amaravati as the sole capital of Andhra Pradesh.
“We held a protest last week and we will be planning another one again to express our displeasure with the government’s decision,” stated Yash Bodduluri, secretary of the Youth Wing of the Telugu Association of North America (TANA).
The previous Telugu Desam Party-led government had chosen Amaravati to be developed as the capital city of the state. However, after Jagan announced a three-capital proposal, farmers in the region have been staging daily protests demanding that the government drop the new proposal.
The farmers are also angered by the government’s decision to go through with the proposal without having consulted them first. The previous TDP government had promised to develop the region, which was announced to be the capital city of the newly divided Andhra Pradesh. Then Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu had promised to set up a world-class metropolis along the banks of the Krishna river and formed the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) to acquire and pool land for the project.
Protests by farmers in the 29 villages of Amaravati who had given 33,000 acres of land in 2015 for the development of the state capital have continued staunchly against the shifting of the capital.