Under the YSRCP government in 2023, during the Global Investment Summit (GIS) in Vizag, the Andhra Pradesh Government signed 352 MoUs worth a staggering ₹13,05,663 crores. The Energy sector alone attracted 40 MoUs worth ₹8,84,823 crore investments projected to generate nearly two lakh employment opportunities for the people of the state. Industries, IT & ITES, Tourism, Agriculture, etc., sector after sector saw significant commitments that reflected a state actively courting capital and building a foundation for growth.
Among those MoUs was one that stands out for the controversy it has since generated: a landmark agreement signed on March 3, 2023, with ReNew Power one of India’s largest renewable energy companies, for an investment of ₹97,500 crore. Land was allocated for ReNew’s wind and power projects in Anantapur and Sri Sathya Sai districts, and government orders were issued in 2023 and 2024, giving formal permissions and approvals for the projects to proceed. This was not a vague expression of intent. This was signed, sealed, and in the process of being delivered.
ReNew CEO Sumant Sinha publicly appreciated the support extended by the YSRCP government and personally acknowledged the role of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in facilitating ReNew’s entry and expansion in Andhra Pradesh.
In the world of large-scale energy investment, such public acknowledgements from a CEO of a major corporation are not made lightly. They reflect genuine gratitude for ground-level administrative support, approvals processed, land allocated, and obstacles cleared. Sumant Sinha’s words were an on-record testimony to what the YSRCP government had done.
Those words now sit inconveniently in the public record as the current coalition government attempts to rewrite the history of these very same projects.
The Art of the Reclaim
What happened next is being described as a masterclass in political appropriation. Not new projects the same investment, the same company, ReNew with new Government Order numbers and new dates that fall conveniently within the tenure of the current government.
The ReNew case is not an isolated incident. It is, critics argue, part of a broader pattern in which the current government has sought to erase the investment architecture built under YSRCP and reconstruct it as its own brick by brick, GO by GO, foundation stone by foundation stone.
When a government resorts to claiming credit for its predecessor’s work rather than building its own legacy, it reveals something important not about how much it has achieved, but about how little it has to show .
