BJP State vice-president S. Vishnuvardhan Reddy said on Saturday that the G.N. Rao Committee report was politically motivated and lacked proper direction.
“It has created a lot of confusion and ignited regional passions. Basically, there is no clarity whether the expert panel is for decentralisation of administration or development,” he said.
Addressing the media here, Mr. Vishnuvardhan Reddy said that both Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his predecessor N. Chandrababu Naidu treated the State as their fiefdom.
On its part, the BJP was committed to decentralisation of development, he said, and pointed out that the establishment of High Court in Kurnool would not be of much use for the development of Rayalaseema except that a few new buildings might come up in the city.
Insider trading
“Why has the government failed to expose the scamsters who had resorted to insider trading in the allotment of 4,000 acres of land in Amaravati if its oft-repeated allegation are true?” Mr. Vishnuvardhan Reddy asked.
He expressed regret that the government was cheating the farmers who gave their valuable lands for the construction of the capital city.
Farmers in Rayalaseema were crying due to perennial drought, and those in Amaravati were crest-fallen due to an altogether different reason, he observed.
Mr. Vishnuvardhan Reddy said the expert committee report was apparently aimed at creating fresh trouble for the TDP after its debacle in the general elections.
‘Retain Secretariat in Amaravati’
The Chief Minister should make his intentions clear before the Capital crisis aggravated, he demanded, and said that the committee did not take any political party into confidence before submitting its findings to the government.
“If the Chief Minister stays in Visakhapatnam, will the Ministers fly there from Amaravati?” the BJP leader sought to know, and insisted that the State Legislature and Secretariat be retained in Amaravati.
BJYM national executive member V. Chaitanya, BJP city president A. Sriram and vice-president K. Srinivas were present.