The once deserted roads in the villages of Venkatapalem and Yerrabalem swarmed with people on Tuesday with the land owners from the 29 villages in Thullur, Tadikonda and Mangalagiri mandals joining the Maha Padayatra, marking completion of 1,000 days of their protest against the YSRCP government’s decision to establish three capitals, instead of a single capital at Amaravati.
Earlier this year, the farmers had undertaken a padayatra from Thullur to Tirupati.
The yatra began on Monday under the aegis of the Amaravati Parirakshana Samithi. The participants offered puja at the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams temple at Venkatapalem. The protesters pulled a chariot that was a major attraction. Leaders of all major political parties, including the TDP, CPI, Congress and the BJP are lending support to the farmers’ cause. After covering nearly 15 km, the protesters ended the day at Mangalagiri
Former Ministers Kamineni Srinivas and Maganti Venkateswara Rao, CPI secretary V. Srinivasa Rao, CPI Amaravati secretary Ch. Babu Rao and leaders from the Congress and the BJP expressed their solidarity with the cause of Amaravati as the sole capital of Andhra Pradesh.
TDP State president Kinjarapu Atchannaidu said the Chief Minister‘s three-capital formula was akin to the British policy of ‘divide and rule.’ He said it was the vision of the TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu to develop Amaravati into a world-class capital and the master plan included development of the city into a liveable world-class city by 2050.
CPI secretary Srinivasa Rao said that the YSRCP government had gone back on its word of continuing its support to Amaravati and killed the prospects of a faster growth of the region. He said that the notion of three capitals was a flawed one.
