Former YSR Congress Party leader and ex-Rajya Sabha member V Vijayasai Reddy on Friday launched a scathing attack on both the ruling Telugu Desam Party-led coalition and YSRCP president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy over the ongoing debate on Andhra Pradesh’s capital.
Sai Reddy reacted sharply to Jagan’s recent declaration that the YSRCP would campaign in the 2029 Assembly elections on the proposed “Mavigun” agenda, in opposition to the Amaravati model championed by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
In a post on social media, Sai Reddy said both the TDP’s insistence that Amaravati should remain the sole capital and the YSRCP’s proposal for “Mavigun” were “meaningless arguments.”
He said that, as a responsible citizen, he felt compelled to express his views on the issue.
Questioning the capital city debate, he asked why successive governments had ignored the recommendations of the Sivaramakrishnan Committee, which was constituted after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh to recommend a suitable location for the state capital.
He said it was unfortunate that, more than a decade after the state’s bifurcation in 2014, political parties were still debating where the capital should be located.
Sai Reddy questioned whether the people would once again be forced to decide the state’s capital in the 2029 elections, nearly 15 years after bifurcation.
He urged all political parties to end what he described as a “political football match” over the capital issue.
He also raised concerns over the implementation of the Amaravati land pooling scheme, asking why many farmers who had surrendered their land for the project had allegedly not yet received their developed plots or formal allotments.
The former MP questioned the need to acquire such a vast extent of land for the capital and argued that the Vijayawada-Guntur-Tenali-Mangalagiri region was already recognised under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.
According to him, government institutions could have been distributed across the VGTM urban region instead of being concentrated in one location.
Sai Reddy alleged that the real issue behind Amaravati was large-scale corruption in the name of capital construction.
He claimed that the present government was spending nearly Rs 50,000 crore on constructing government buildings while significantly inflating project costs.
According to him, the Amaravati project had become a mechanism for facilitating corruption under the guise of building the state’s capital.
He further alleged that branding Amaravati as the “capital of the gods” was being used to justify massive expenditure while enabling those in power to collect commissions ranging between 25 and 30 percent on construction contracts.
He argued that the site where the new capital buildings are being constructed is nearly 50 kilometres away from the historic Amaravati town, which houses the famous Amareswara Temple and the Buddha statue.
Claiming that corruption worth nearly Rs 15,000 crore could be involved if commissions of 25 to 30 percent were embedded in the Rs 50,000-crore project, Sai Reddy questioned the relevance of introducing a new political slogan like “Mavigun” while ignoring alleged financial irregularities in the Amaravati project.
He said that with major construction works likely to be completed within the next three years, the debate should focus on transparency and accountability rather than political slogans.
Announcing his next course of action, Sai Reddy said he would soon move the court with detailed information regarding cost escalations and alleged corruption in the Amaravati capital works.
