A war of words has broken out between Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka over the future of India’s tech investments. On October 2, Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh courted controversy by inviting Bengaluru-based firms to shift operations to Anantapur, citing crumbling infrastructure on the city’s Outer Ring Road.Quoting a Moneycontrol report on startups and corporates increasingly moving to North Bengaluru and Whitefield, Lokesh took to X, posting: “North sounds good. Slightly more north is Anantapur… where we are building a world-class aerospace and defence ecosystem!”
The pitch drew a sharp rebuke from Karnataka’s IT Minister Priyank Kharge, who dismissed it as “desperate scavenging.” Kharge argued that Bengaluru’s fundamentals remained strong, pointing to Savills’ Growth Hubs Index that places the city among the world’s leading centres for innovation and urbanisation by 2033.
Kharge highlighted projections of 8.5% annual GDP growth for Bengaluru until 2035, rising property markets, and steady migration inflows that will expand the city’s urban agglomeration to 14.4 million in 2025. He added that the state government was investing heavily in infrastructure to sustain this growth. In a pointed jibe, Kharge compared Lokesh’s invitation to parasitism, asking on X: “By the way, what is an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other’s expense called?”Lokesh’s outreach is not new. In recent months, he has publicly invited startups and investors—from BlackBuck to aerospace firms—to relocate from Bengaluru to Andhra Pradesh, offering Visakhapatnam and Anantapur as cleaner, safer and better-planned alternatives with dedicated industrial land and incentives. While these pitches underscore Andhra Pradesh’s aggressive bid to attract investment, Kharge’s counterattack highlights the political sensitivity around Bengaluru’s reputation as India’s tech capital.
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