Konaseema under siege

Sea of humanity at Ravulapalem; Traffic held up for over 20 km on NH-16

Mock court awards capital punishment to KCR, extradition to Sonia

Rajahmundry: Samaikyandra agitation, which was confined to protests and rallied until now in East Godavari district, intensified as traffic was stalled for nearly 20 km on National Highway-16 on Tuesday. Traffic came to a standstill on both sides between Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada from here when thousands of agitators of all Joint Action Committees (JACs) blocked the road as part of the ongoing Samiakyandhra agitation on the 21st day on Tuesday.

Ravulapalem, the entrance of Konaseema, transformed into a sea of humanity as some 20,000 people from the nook and corner of Konaseema turned up to stage a rasta-roko at Kala Venkata Rao Centre on Tuesday. Agitators from APNGOs JAC, APSRTC NMU and EU, Trade Union JACs, Chamber of Commerce JACs, non-political JACs, Student JACs, Electricity, Municipality and other JACs took out a rally with 1,000 motorcycles from different parts of Konaseema from early hours of Tuesday.

Hundreds of agitators with Samaikyandhra map and Telugu Talli printed on white flags rode towards Ravulapalem. The agitators stopped vehicular traffic by parking their motorcycles across the road from 9 am. Heavy vehicles between Kolkata and Chennai were stopped for about 20 km from Ravulapalem to Peravali on Vijayawada side and up to Madiki on Visakhapatnam route. Minister for Animal Husbandry Pinipe Viswaroop and Kothapeta MLA Bandaru Satyananda Rao from the Congress and Gollaplli Suryarao, former minister, and Reddy Subrahmanyam from the Telugu Desam Party, and Chirla Jaggireddy, former MLA of Kothapeta from YSR Congress Party, took part in the road blockade programme, which was followed by ‘Vanta-Varpu’ on NH-16.

Meanwhile, large number of employees under the aegis of APNGOs Association took out a huge rally with motorcycles from the Sub-Collector office at Rajahmundry to Lala Cheruvu via Gokavaram Bus Stand, Kambala Tank and Arts College. Later, the employees sat on the National Highway-16 and raised slogans against Sonia Gandhi and bifurcation of the State. They pledged to sacrifice their lives for Samaikyandhra. Vehicular traffic was held up for several km due to the rasta-roko.

A mock court was conducted in front of the District Sessions Court in Rajahmundry in which the court hall scene was recreated in public. Seemandhra Advocates JAC co-convenor Muppalla Subbarao argued on behalf of the public, advocates Swarnalatha as judge, NMG Rajkumar as TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, Krishna Kapoor appeared for Sonia Gandhi and KCR, and Mallikarjun took care of prosecution. After hearing the arguments, in her judgement, Swarnalatha mentioned that the court agreed with the arguments put forth by public as well as the prosecution with evidences that the accused, Sonia Gandhi and K Chandrasekhar Rao, committed several crimes like dividing the State in a hurry, provoking the students of Telangana to commit suicides, and making provocative statements which leads to enmity, hatred between the people of Telangana and Seemandhra. Hence, she awarded capital punishment to KCR and extradition to Sonia Gandhi with immediate effect. The mock court attracted a large number of people from different parts of the city, including other JAC members, advocates and students.