Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has decided to invite his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao to the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new capital Amarvati on October 22.
However it was not clear whether KCR will attend the event to be held in Guntur district.
The issue was discussed at the meeting of Andhra Pradesh cabinet at Vijayawada on Saturday where the arrangements for the grand ceremony were reviewed. On the occasion Naidu unveiled the invitation card of the event.
According to sources, Naidu proposed inviting KCR with whom he had a bitter tug of war when Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated in June last year. Naidu told his cabinet colleagues that he will personally meet KCR at his residence and extend the invitation and hoped this will help in easing tensions between the two.
If KCR accepts the invitation then it will be his first visit to the neighbouring Telugu state. However the sources in Telangana government said that KCR was in two minds given the bitterness and the ongoing confrontation between the two states on a wide range of issues including the sharing of resources.
The cabinet also decided to extend the invitations to the Chief Ministers of other neighbouring states including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Pondicherry.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the chief guest, the Special Protection Group has restricted the number of persons to be present on the dais to only 15.
Meanwhile, the capital region development authority officials were waiting for the environmental clearance to the construction of the new capital from the union government officials. CRDA officials said they hope that the clearance will be received by the middle of next week, paving the way for the beginning of construction work.