Jagan Mohan Reddy, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, has made more impactful decisions for the state than Union Home Minister Amit Shah has done in the central government (although in opposite direction). But, on one hand, the decisions of Amit Shah are going to unify the country like never before while on the other, Jagan is doing irreversible damage to the society and economy of the state.
In the latest trail of stupidity, Jagan Mohan Reddy has told the state legislative assembly that, the state will have three capitals in a South Africa like set up, where Amaravati may continue to function as state’s legislative capital, but the executive capital will be shifted to Visakhapatnam while judicial capital to be shifted to Kurnool- a city in Western Andhra Pradesh.
“Decentralization is the real concept. We should also change. Countries like South Africa have three capitals. We may also have three capitals,” said Reddy.
Previously Reddy appointed 5 deputy chief ministers in the state after his government came to power in May 2019.
Criticizing the proposal, former Chief Minister of the state, Chandrababu Naidu said, “It is a Tughlaq act. Perhaps Tughlaq’s rule was better.”
Amaravati was the brainchild of Naidu, who invested political and economic capital to establish the city as the capital of the newly divided state, whose capital went to Telangana.
It has been almost 6 months since Jaganmohan Reddy government came to power in Andhra Pradesh. The government has already taken many disastrous decisions, which will damage the macroeconomic stability of the state.
After the Reddy government came to power, it ordered to review many projects sanctioned by Naidu government like the development of Amravati as startup capital, which put the investment by Singapore government at risk, and review of renewable energy projects for which the government formed a high-level negotiation committee (HLNC).
The newly elected Andhra Pradesh government refused to buy power from the renewable energy projects, as agreed by the previous TDP government.
The Reddy government is scraping one project after another since it came to power. This costs in investment, macroeconomic stability and the reputation of the state as an investment destination. The inability of the state in ‘enforcement of contracts’ and lack of continuation in policies hamper its ability to attract investment for long term projects; because, the companies fear that they could lose the project with the change in the government.
In order to settle the political scores, the Reddy government is doing immense damage to the state of Andhra Pradesh, which already is under enormous debt due to populist decision of the Reddy government.