By Ramesh Kandula
YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s latest intervention on Amaravati is not a constitutional insight. It is a political reflex.
To suddenly argue that the Constitution does not recognise the concept of a capital — and therefore the debate itself is misplaced — is not a discovery. It is a retreat. When power was in hand, the same leader spoke with certainty about three capitals, pushed a Bill, defended it in public, and litigated it in court. Today, as Amaravati gathers momentum again, the argument conveniently shifts to “there is no such concept as capital at all.”
This is not federal theory. It is political convenience.
If the Constitution truly rendered capitals irrelevant, there was no need for five years of upheaval, farmer protests, Cabinet decisions, legislation, and prolonged court battles. Jagan Reddy could have simply stayed in Tadepalli, or Pulivendula, or Visakhapatnam, and declared the matter settled. But that was never the intent. The intent was to delegitimise Amaravati — first through decentralisation rhetoric, now through constitutional hair-splitting.
The second line of attack — that Amaravati lies in a river basin and is therefore environmentally untenable — is even weaker. This argument has been tested, litigated, and exhausted. The National Green Tribunal examined it in detail and rejected it. The Supreme Court upheld that finding. Historical flood data, expert committees, embankment studies — all were considered. The conclusion was unambiguous: Amaravati does not lie in a floodplain and is not prone to Krishna floods.
To revive the same claim now, with a cosmetic change in terminology from floodplain to river basin, is not environmental concern. It is narrative recycling.
There is also a deeper contradiction that exposes the hollowness of the argument. If “where the Chief Minister sits is the capital,” then the location of the CM’s own residence becomes politically neutral. Yet no one in Telangana concluded that Erravelli became the capital simply because KCR spent most of his time there. Capitals are not personal seating arrangements; they are institutional anchors — administrative, legal, economic.
That is precisely why Amaravati matters.
Amaravati is not just a city project. It is the first serious attempt by Andhra Pradesh to create a planned administrative capital after bifurcation — with farmer participation, land pooling, and long-term spatial planning. To stall it repeatedly, through shifting arguments and manufactured doubts, is to keep the state in permanent transition.
What has changed now is not the Constitution, nor the river, nor the environment. What has changed is political reality. Construction has resumed. Legal uncertainty has ended. Statutory backing is being reinforced. Amaravati is beginning to look less like an idea and more like a city.
And that is what unsettles its critics.
When projects fail, they are mocked. When they stagnate, they are ignored. When they begin to take shape, they are attacked. Jagan’s renewed commentary fits that pattern neatly. Old objections are repackaged, old fears are re-inflated, and old narratives are dusted off — not because they are true, but because they are familiar.
This is not about constitutional literacy or environmental prudence. It is about losing control of the narrative.
Amaravati will still face challenges. Every new big project does. But the debate now should be about execution, accountability, and governance — not about whether capitals exist at all. That question was answered long ago, not in the Constitution’s fine print, but in the lived reality of every functioning state.
Denying that reality does not make it disappear. It only exposes the denial.