Chief Minister-Designate Chandrababu Naidu Keen to Settle in Seemandhra at the Earliest

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister-designate Nara Chandrababu Naidu is understood to have decided to shift himself to a place near Guntur and start functioning temporarily as the CM as a prelude, till the new capital city is built in the next 10-year period.

Under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2013, the government has been given a 10-year grace period to set up the new capital city. After the 10-year period, Telangana will own Hyderabad, and the Andhra Pradesh government will have to function from the new capital city, which is yet to be announced by the Centre.

The K Shivaramakrishnan-headed committee is yet to recommend a location or a city in Seemandhra as the new capital. The committee may recommend a green capital city or a brown capital city for the residual AP.

But Naidu is said to be eager to function from the Seemandhra region already, instead of Hyderabad. At least for now, the AP CM-designate has decided to work three days every week in the Seemandhra region, immediately once he takes oath as Chief Minister any day after 2 June.

Sources revealed that Naidu has decided to set up a temporary CM office at any location in the Vijayawada-Mangalagiri-Guntur region as it is equidistant to all districts of Seemandhra.

Some media reports claim Naidu is interested in setting up a temporary office in Guntur's Acharya Nagarjuna University premises, on the Chennai highway. The Sixth Battalion Training Centre of AP Special Police in 400 acres, near Guntur, can be converted into a DGP office to work in close proximity to the CM's temporary office in the varsity.

Guntur's local TDP leaders say that Naidu wants to project the Guntur area as the right location to build a capital city, prior to the Shivaramakrishnan panel recommending its own capital city or region.

The TDP cadre in Guntur has urged Naidu to invite Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi to the CM's swearing-in ceremony and project Guntur as the new capital city, so that Modi can make a call on funding to build the new capital of Andhra Pradesh.

The Telangana people had given a huge majority to Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). This has also prompted Naidu to shift AP/Seemandhra's capital from Hyderabad as soon as possible. Hence, Naidu does not want to wait for the 10-year grace period and is keen to shift to Seemandhra at the earliest, according to media reports.

Even TRS chief and Telangana CM-designate K Chandrasekhar Rao has also started a rhetoric, stating he would not allow government employees, whose origin is in Seemandhra, to work in Telangana.

Rao has even gone to the extent of saying that once he becomes the CM on 2 June, he will not pay the salaries to the staff, whose origin is Seemandhra. This might have also affected Naidu's decision to immediately shift to Seemandhra, and start functioning from there.