Amaravati: Capital farmers intensify stir, write to PM, meet Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu

Amaravati: Anguished farmers of Amaravati region, who have been agitating for a week now, met Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu here on Tuesday evening and urged him to ensure the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government did not go ahead with its plan to relocate state's capital.

Separately, they sent letters by Speed Post to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in the matter and prevail upon the Andhra Pradesh government not to shift the state capital from Amaravati.

The farmers submitted a memorandum to the Vice-President, who was camping in his family's Swarna Bharat Trust near Gannavaram, and said their future would turn gloomy if the capital was shifted from Amaravati.

"We have voluntarily given up our fertile agricultural lands, where three crops are grown every year, for building the state capital after bifurcation. But now we are being pushed into ruin," the farmers lamented.

Maintaining that he could not speak publicly on the issue, the Vice-President sought to assure the aggrieved farmers that he would take it up with "those concerned".

"I understand your anguish. Nowhere in the country did farmers give up over 33,000 acre of land for a purpose," Venkaiah Naidu remarked.

In their letter to the Prime Minister, the farmers said they had surrendered precious land spread over 29 villages in the region for the development of the capital.

Recalling that the Prime Minister himself laid the foundation stone for the capital development on October 22, 2015, the farmers sought "justice" from him.

"Land is the only source of our livelihood and we have surrendered it to the government.

"The physical features of the land have been completely altered for the purpose of infrastructure development.

The land is of no use to us now, unless the promised infrastructure is created and the capital city is developed as per the Master Plan," the farmers said.

Meanwhile, farmers took out a candle-light march in Tulluru and Velagapudi while another group held a torch rally in Mangalagiri area, denouncing the state's move to shift the capital city to Visakhapatnam.

Women members from the farmers' families filed a complaint with Tulluru police that their MLA Undavalli Sridevi of the ruling YSR Congress from Tadikonda, was "missing". The MLA could not be found though farmers of the region have been agitating for the past one week against the move to shift the capital from Amaravati, they said. A similar complaint was also filed against another YSRC MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy, who represents Mangalagiri constituency that forms part of the core capital.