YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s decision to create three capital cities for the state – executive capital at Visakhapatnam, legislative capital at Amaravati and judicial capital at Kurnool, might have faced a lot of criticism from the opposition and also some sections of the media.
But the fact that different states have started looking at the chief minister as a role model and considering creation of more than one capital cities of late has given a lot of boost to the YSRC leadership.
The other day, Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced shifting of several government offices from Bengaluru to other parts of the state, particularly Belagavi, to reduce pressure on Bengaluru and decentralise the administration.
Even Jharkhand chief minister Hemanth Soren proposed formation of more than two administrative capitals, apart from existing capital of Ranchi for the state for decentralised development.
On Wednesday, it was the turn of Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat to adopt the similar formula of Jagan Mohan Reddy. He announced that Gairsain in Chamoli district would be made permanent summer capital.
It has been a long-pending demand of locals to have a capital at Gairsain — a small town nestled in Garhwal some 280 km from Dehradun — the provisional state capital. The demand was conceded two decades after the hill state was carved out of Uttar Pradesh.
While Dehradun will continue as the state capital during winter, there is already a separate judicial capital for Uttarakhand – at Nainital, which also houses Raj Bhavan, the Governor’s residence. So, like Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand will also have three capitals from now.
Jammu and Kashmir also have two capitals – summer capital at Srinagar and winter capital at Jammu. Similarly, Maharashtra also operates from Mumbai and Nagpur.
So, there is nothing to find fault with Jagan’s proposal!
