The much-awaited foundation laying ceremony of Capital City Amaravati went on expected lines, devoid of any significant announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He only reiterated what had been said time and again, that the A.P Reorganization Act would be implemented in letter and spirit.
By and large the function was bunch of surprises. Mr. Modi was to speak for 32 minutes but he restricted his speech to about 20 minutes. Translation of his speech by Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu took the rest of time.
Another thing that was a pleasant surprise was the Prime Minister bringing ‘holy water and soil’ from the ‘temple of democracy’ (Parliament) and Yamuna River. Though he seemed to have matched the same idea as the Chief Minister, which was to consecrate the venue of foundation ceremony with the holy material, few expected he would spring such a surprise.
The biggest of surprises was presence of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. However, he barely spoke for two minutes, half of which were devoted to greeting the dignitaries. Speculation was rife that he would stay away, but he dispelled the doubts by honouring his Andhra counterpart’s personal invitation.
Then there was the stoic silence that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu maintained on the Special Category Status (SCS). People were looking forward to an announcement by the PM which never came, and Mr. Naidu too preferred to talk about everything but SCS apparently due to political compulsions.
Few big businessmen who figured in the long list of invitees, turned up for the event. Only a few of them including GMR Group Chairman Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao could be seen at the venue.
Tollywood was also poorly represented. Balakrishna, Venkatesh and Kalyan Ram were the only notable stars that twinkled among the multitudes. Big stars like Chiranjeevi and Nagarjuna were conspicuous by their absence. It’s apparently the political stand taken by the Congress party that kept Chiranjeevi away.
