- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Visakhapatnam, one of India’s major coastal tourist destinations, is set to be the capital of the south-eastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, its chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy announced on Tuesday (31).
He said he will also shift to the new capital “in the months to come”.
Reddy, who made the assertion about Visakhapatnam, where the Eastern Naval Command of the Indian Navy is headquartered, while speaking about an upcoming investment summit in the city. He has spoken about making Visakhapatnam Andhra’s executive capital in the past as well and said that he would work from there.
“Here I am, to invite you, to Visakhapatnam, which is going to be our capital in the days to come,” he said, announcing the global summit to be held in early March. He did not set out a timeline, but added, “I myself will be shifting over to Visakhapatnam in the months to come.”
When the state of Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, it got Hyderabad, which served as the capital of undivided Andhra Pradesh, as its capital.
In 2015, Andhra’s then government led by Chandrababu Naidu, which operated from Hyderabad as an interim arrangement, had said that Amravati, located on the banks of river Krishna in the Vijayawada-Guntur region, would become the new capital of the state.
In 2020, when Reddy was in power, the state planned to have three capital cities for Andhra Pradesh — Visakhapatnam for the executive, Amravati for the legislature, and Kurnool for the judiciary.
The plan hit a roadblock as the state’s high court ruled in 2022 that it couldn’t make a law for that. The case is currently pending at the top court on an appeal by Reddy’s government.
