Three capitals or three States?

Andhra Pradesh state has the longest straight coastline in India stretching over 1000 kilometres. Somewhere in the middle Rayalaseema joins the coastal districts as a hump. Even after bifurcation of Telangana the state of Andhra Pradesh had three distinct historical cultural regions of Rayalaseema, coastal Andhra, and Northern coastal region. North coastal region also known as Southern Kalinga really became Telugu region thanks to the expansion of Vijayanagara empire and the defeat of Gajapatis ruling from Cuttack.

Rayalaseema region which derives its name from the rule of Krishnadevaraya is a distinct area separately ceded by Nizam of Hyderabad to the British as part of the subsidiary alliance. Nallamala hill range physically divides the Rayalaseema area from the rest of the coastal region. In this state sub regional aspirations are real and genuine and need to be tackled with a lot of vision and foresight. These sub regional aspirations played an important part even at the time of separation from Madras Presidency and location of capital for the new state of Andhra in the early 50s.

After the bifurcation of the state in 2014 leaders of Andhra Pradesh at least should have learnt lessons from the manner in which Telangana got divided from Andhra Pradesh. N T Rama Rao tried to build an artificial self-respect of Telugus as a political plank ignoring the sub regional political aspirations. This sowed the seeds for the strong agitation for Telangana to protect and promote distinct sub regional interests resulting in the separation of Telangana .

Chandrababu Naidu who became the chief minister in 2014 had an opportunity to factor in these sub regional aspirations and evolve a more inclusive agenda for the location of the capital and other government offices including the High court. Unfortunately, this did not happen and the narrow sectarian and real estate interests influenced the setting up of the capital city. In fact this non inclusive agenda of location of the capital is one of the main reasons for his party taking huge drubbing in the 2019 elections losing almost all seats in Rayalaseema except three.

Jagan Mohan Reddy had one more chance in 2019 to set the record straight and work for a broader inclusive agenda for settling the capital issue. Since Amaravati became a capital and was in existence by the time he came to power he had an opportunity of dispersing different wings of the state to other regions while continuing Amaravati as administrative capital and downsizing the impractical mega city concept of Chandra Babu Naidu . Instead of working out a practical decentralised approach while retaining the capital at Amaravati he came out with this another impractical concept of three capitals- administrative capital at Vizag, legislative capital at Amaravati and judicial capital at Kurnool.

Mere location of High court does not make a place a judicial capital but only be known as High Court located at Kurnool as is the case in a number of other states where High court is located at a place other than the capital of the state. Holding sessions of legislature at a place does not make it capital either . It will only be the assembly sessions held at Amaravati . Another set of real estate interests in Vizag seem to be driving the agenda of this government .

This is an issue which should have been handled with a lot of fore sight and vision given the strong sub-regional sentiments which were even very much evident way back in 1950s when the Andhra state got separated from Madras Presidency. The Telangana agitation and the subsequent bifurcation also highlighted the need to handle in a genuine and sincere manner the sub-regional aspirations. Both these leaders have failed to show the necessary vision and foresight in addressing these issues . Today the Andhra Pradesh state capital issue got highly complicated and is in a mess . Given the strong sub-regional sentiments that are whipped up who knows the final solution may be three states instead of three capitals. If that happens the entire blame has to be shared by the lack of vision and foresight of these two leaders.

(The author is a former Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh. Views expressed are personal)