As the State government decides to carve out new districts, the demand for creation of Balaji district with Tirupati as its headquarters resurfaced after a gap of three decades.
Delimitation exercise
The yardstick to create new districts on the lines of parliamentary constituencies is the delimitation exercise taken up ahead of 2009 general elections. In fact, the process had then come under sharp criticism for being ‘skewed’ and not reflecting the geographical contiguity or regional aspirations.
For example, the exercise cleaved the temple city of Tirupati in the middle, appending the south-western parts into Chandragiri Assembly constituency and the eastern portion into Srikalahasti.
As Chandragiri is part of the Chittoor Lok Sabha constituency, half of the city voters elect an MP who cares little for the fringe area. Similarly, the Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency has seven Assembly segments, of which three viz., Tirupati, Srikalahasti and Satyavedu are from Chittoor district, and four viz., Gudur, Venkatagiri, Sullurpet and Sarvepalli from Nellore, giving a dominant say to Nellore segments.
The original idea for Balaji district took shape during the time of the late N.T. Rama Rao by clubbing Venkatagiri from Nellore and Railway Kodur from Kadapa districts to the eastern half of Chittoor, with Tirupati as headquarters.
For all practical purposes, the Department of Stamps and Registration has already marked lands in and around Tirupati as ‘Sri Balaji district’. “Mythologically and historically, we have several landmarks and temples in Tirupati, Srikalahasti, Chandragiri, Puthalapattu and Satyavedu associated with Lord Venkateswara. Creation of Balaji district should take note of people’s sentiments and not done in an arbitrary manner”, observes Congress State general secretary D. Rambhupal Reddy.
TDP leader and SAAP former Chairman P.R. Mohan said the proposal was first mooted in 1990s, in view of Chittoor district’s wide span measuring 360 km from Kuppam on the Karnataka border to Satyavedu on the Tamil Nadu side. “When former Chief Minister Nedurumalli Janardhan Reddy mooted the idea, we all joined hands apolitically to support the move, but it was nowhere to be seen,” he recalled.
All political parties have requested the high-level committee vested with the job to understand geographical contiguity before defining the contours of the new district.
