The passage of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2026, in Parliament, recognising Amaravati as the sole, permanent capital of Andhra Pradesh, should definitively end the long-standing uncertainty over this crucial matter.
The bill was supported by all political parties except the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), which had previously proposed a three-capital model. Without going into the merits of YSRCP’s proposal, it needs to be pointed out that on such matters, the TDP should have ensured political consensus across the spectrum to make it regime-change-proof.
Political one-upmanship, often leading to the renaming or scrapping of predecessors' initiatives, creates unnecessary chaos. Some opportunistic politicians who were virulently opposed to the policies and projects of a previous regime will simply rename and continue them once they come to power. It is a fact that the Narendra Modi government had opposed every major policy of the UPA regime, but simply rebranded and publicised it as its own.
In Tamil Nadu, the Jayalalithaa government converted Karunanidhi’s pet project, the Assembly-cum-Secretariat complex in Chennai, into a multi-super specialty hospital. The DMK-AIADMK rivalry did become an issue when it came to the continuity of broader policies and initiatives.
In fact, by choosing to retain the "Amma" branding for the state's budget canteen chain, MK Stalin, as chief minister, chose to break the historical cycle of political renaming in Tamil Nadu, which needs to be appreciated.
Hope the trend of petty politics through scuttling or renaming projects has come to an end once and for all, not only at the state level but also at the Centre.
The Chandrababu Naidu government should refrain from going to town boasting victory to demean the opposition. Instead, a statesman politician of Naidu’s stature should try to bring the opposition on board to play the role of a constructive critic, which will only help the government to work effectively and efficiently.
There are indeed issues relating to Amaravati which the YSRCP could and should take up as a responsible opposition party and hold the government accountable. Two major issues that continue to dog the Amaravati capital project are land acquisition and mammoth financing.
The government needs to focus on resolving the issue of land acquisition, which got entangled in legal battles and widespread protests, and intense political lobbying by vested interests. Having learned lessons from the problems faced in Phase One, the TDP government managed to avert the repeat of some of the issues in Phase Two, which is reportedly progressing in a relatively smoother way.
Due to the policy flip-flops and uncalled-for political volte-face, the project suffered from unpardonable delays and the consequent cost overruns. Here again, the government is facing an unenviable and daunting challenge in terms of financing and resource mobilisation that comes with massive capital expenditure which will be constrained by a burgeoning high debt burden.
Chandrababu Naidu needs to deploy his political negotiation and persuasion skills and leverage his position in the NDA government to make the Centre more generous with allocating funds for the Amaravati project. Naidu’s claim to fame is in transforming an existing capital city like Hyderabad into an IT hub.
But building a greenfield capital city is proving to be a much bigger challenge.