Demand for Madanapalle district intensifies

The demand for a separate Madanapalle district has resurfaced with renewed intensity, as the denizens ramp up protests and blame successive governments for ignoring the aspirations of western Chittoor, which is now part of Annamayya district. The political and public groups maintain that Madanapalle’s vast area, population, and cultural ethos make it a natural selection for district status, but despite repeated promises, their dream continues to elude them.

The discontent has dug deep into the region’s psyche after the YSR Congress Party government effected the reorganisation of districts in April 2022. Creating the new Annamayya district, it picked Rayachoti as the district headquarters, unmindful of the neighbouring Madanapalle. The officials and YSRCP leaders kept justifying the move on administrative grounds, citing Rayachoti’s focal location and its road connectivity to Kadapa, Rajampet, and Piler. The argument in favour of Jagan Mohan Reddy government went further that Rayachoti was better positioned geographically to serve the people of the entire district, consisting of Rayachoti, Rajampeta, and Madanapalle revenue divisions.

The pro-government version then did little or nothing to pacify the residents of Madanapalle, which wields a larger population, a strong intellectual society that took shape during the British Raj, and well established educational institutions, hospitals, and business avenues. Madanapalle is still considered better equipped to be a district headquarters. However, Rayachoti had long been the bastion of the YSR family, the Congress, and later the YSR Congress Party. In contrast, Madanapalle favoured the TDP and Left parties.

Coming to the latest scenario, Madanapalle residents observe that Rajampeta division, supported by influential leaders, is now being fast-tracked towards district status.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has, on multiple occasions, made the people of Madanapalle feel assured of justice. In 2019, Mr. Naidu promised to transform the division into an IT and Tourism hub, apart from giving a fillip to the tomato growers, and generating of jobs for the youth. During a visit to Punganur in 2022, he pledged development of Rayalaseema but stopped short of making any commitment on the district status. In 2023, while addressing a party meeting in Madanapalle, Mr. Naidu came out with an assurance that if the TDP would come to power, the district status to Madanapalle would be a reality.

Ahead of the 2024 elections, both Mr. Naidu and former chief minister (of undivided Andhra Pradesh) Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy, then contesting as the BJP’s MP candidate from the Rajampeta Lok Sabha seat, vehemently criticised the Jagan government for the neglect of the Madanapalle region, but neither could chalk out a roadmap, which has only intensified public scepticism.

Coming to the Jana Sena Party stand, In March 2019, Pawan Kalyan (then who made the Jana Sena to contest as a seperate entity) promised that he would strive to make Madanapalle an IT and Tourism hub, and projected job opportunities to 10,000 youth.

With elections to the local bodies in the offing, the issue of Madanapalle as a separate district is likely to reshape political arithmetic in Madanapalle division, the erstwhile western Chittoor. The promise of a separate district has become a litmus test for political leaders in the backdrop of their assurances over the years, which remain far from being tangible.