Contrary to the speculations that the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government will conduct this year’s Independence Day celebrations on August 15 at Visakhapatnam, it has now been decided that the celebrations will be held at Vijayawada.
State chief secretary Neelam Sawhney has issued instructions to the authorities to make arrangements for the conduct of the Independence Day celebrations at Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium in Vijayawada with limited gathering strictly following the Covid-19 guidelines.
Jagan has instructed the authorities to see that the Independence Day celebrations be held in a big way, including police parade and display of various tableau highlighting the achievements of the state government in the last one year.
Initially, there were reports that chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy would unfurl the national flag on the beach road in Visakhapatnam on August 15 and address the gathering heralding the launch of the executive capital of the state.
Later, the chief minister was expected to lay the foundation stone for the executive capital somewhere near Kapuluppada area. There were also reports that the chief minister’s office would also be partially shifted to Vizag on the same day.
However, with the state high court granting stay on the shifting of offices till August 14 following a petition from the Amaravati farmers, the chief minister is learnt to have dropped the idea of conducting Independence Day celebrations at Visakhapatnam and sticking to Vijayawada.
It may be mentioned that even for the Republic Day celebrations, the Jagan government had made all the arrangements in Visakhapatnam.
The Navy officials had conducted trials for the Republic Day parade and several school children also took part in the practice sessions.
But the programme was cancelled at the last moment and the venue was changed to Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium in Vijayawada.