On Dec 20, 2019 Hemanth created a Whatsapp group with the name Chittoor Demands University and added few of his co-activists. And few others quickly joined through the Invite link. It was in reaction to the announcement made by Govt of AP that Skill Development University to come up in Tirupati. Though technically the university was announced to be established in Chittoor, this one is again going to be established at Tirupati, which already hosts good number of universities and unarguably Tirupati is the most developed part of Chittoor district. Which means that the less developed and the much attention needed district headquarter is ONCE AGAIN neglected. So the announcement definitely didn’t go well with the citizens and netizens of Chittoor city. And the events that followed were unprecedented in the history of Chittoor or perhaps in the history of Andhra Pradesh as well.

Chittoor headquarters is underdeveloped to say the least. Sugar Factory, Vijaya Dairy & Nutrine Factory, things that Chittoor people are highly sentimental about, were closed for various reasons. Since then industrial sector almost came to standstill. Hardly a thing or two comes to mind when we look back to see if there were any attempts to develop Chittoor in the last decade or two. And with their city being neglected one more time few people felt it was high time to raise the voice.

Social Media pages of Chittoor, which are highly active and play a key role in raising the local problems, united to fight for the cause and almost unanimously decides to only post posts demanding the university. To ask for what they deserve. To question the public representatives they had elected. Most importantly to make their voices heard and demand the much needed attention Chittoor needs and deserves.

Ramababu Ayyagari, man who leads activism in Chittoor, takes a step forward and calls MLA seeking a meeting to discuss the university matter and meets MLA at his residence along with the other enthusiasts. In Parallel netizens starts tweeting to public representatives with hashtags such as #ChittoorCityDemandsUniversity. Social meedia pages started posting stats and digging the history on how unfairly the headquarter has been neglected to provoke the public. It was found out that Chittoor is the ONLY district headquarter in Andhra Pradesh without any university. To convey their pain to the Govt of AP they have decided to start a postcard campaign Chittoor had never seen or heard of before. Target was to send over 10000 post cards to CM before Jan 9th, the day Jagan will visit Chittoor to officially launch Amma Vodi scheme, one of the nine Navaratnalu Jagan’s party promised in their manifesto.

Rambabu gaaru & his spirited team started going to the colleges in Chittoor and make the students aware of happenings around the demand for university and kick started the campaign with around 200 odd letters to chief minister on the first day of the campaign. During the course of this team also meets K. Narayana Swamy, Deputy CM and MLA of GD Nellore, neighboring assembly constituency, and convey him the demand asking for his support. Rallies and the postcard campaign continued to gain momentum and started putting more pressure the Govt and public representatives. Result ? MLA & Deputy CM conveys the people’s demand, of establishing skill university in Chittoor headquarters, to CM Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy ON STAGE of the Ammavodi launch event.

But Jagan didn’t speak a word about the skill university. He confined his speech to the event of that day Ammovodi as most people expected. Chittoor people’s wish remained unanswered. Few people lost hope, few exited from the group and the campaign. But few still continue to fight for the cause, till this day. Chief Minister Office is still receiving the post cards. Count of postcards reached over 14000. Few now being sent with the change in address , to President of India, hoping for a change. They know a reply to postcard usually takes sometime but all they hope is they should hear something good soon.

















Even if Chittoor doesn’t get the university, this campaign should and will remain special for the kind of reach it had and the impact it left on Chittoor people. For making people believe that they can lobby the elected representatives to an extent.

“Masses Should Lobby the Government not the Business Magnates“

Here is to more such kinds of lobbying by the people!!! 🍻🥂🥂🍻

#Chittoor #SkillUniversity #ChittoorCityDemandsSkillUniversity #Postcards #PostcardsCampaign #SkillColleges #AndhraPradesh #APSSDC #APSkillDevelopement #EndTheNeglect #ChittoorDeservesDevelopement #DevelopeChittoor