The plan to make Visakhapatnam the capital city for the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh should be included in the manifesto of the political parties, demanded Uttarandhra Rakshana Vedika (URV) president S.S. Shiva Shankar while addressing a press conference here on Thursday.
He pointed out that no party has given a clear picture on the development plans of Visakhapatnam, post-bifurcation of the State. “We have been vehemently demanding the creation of a separate railway zone and none of the leaders has taken it up seriously in Parliament. And now we have Vijayawada, Guntakal, and Kurnool competing for it,” he said.
The URV representatives demanded that all the parties should give a concrete plan not only on the development aspect, but also give an assurance that they would fight for the capital city and railway zone.
According to Mr. Shiva Shankar, post Bhattam Srirama Murthy, none of the MP candidates had local roots. “Neither of the former MPs such as N. Janardhan Reddy and D. Purandeswari had any emotional attachment to this place and so is the case with the present candidates Y.S. Vijayamma and K. Haribabu,” he said.
As per Mr. Shiva Shankar, because of the non-local status of the MP candidates, development of Visakhapatnam, in its true sense has never taken place. “The last big industry to come here was the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and that was because of the son of the soil Tenneti Viswanadham. He toiled hard for it. We do not mind if the candidates are non-local, but they have to clearly specify the plans that they have for Visakhapatnam, since they are contesting from here. We do not want visiting MPs,” he said.
