TRS MLAs stage ‘Shanti deeksha’

Hyderabad: Even as the APNGOs pitched for united Andhra Pradesh by conducting by ‘Save Andhra Pradesh’ meeting at LB Stadium in the city, the TRS MLAs and MLCs organised a parallel day-long ‘Shanti deeksha’ at the Assembly, demanding Seemandhra people to give up their agitation against the formation of Telangana.

Unrelenting to police resistance, TRS legislators barged into the Assembly and staged sit-in protest in front of gate number 14 as they were disallowed to sit before Gandhi statue in the premises. While the TRS leader T Harish Rao reached the assembly on two-wheeler, other MLAs came in their cars. When TRS senior leaders and MLAs Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and Etela Rajendar were not allowed, Harish argued with police and managed to enter the Assembly.

TRS senior leader T Harish Rao questioned the Assembly Speaker N Manohar and police forces as to why TRS was not allowed to conduct dharna when the Seemandhra ministers, MLAs and MLCs permitted to express their protest against the State’s bifurcation at Gandhi statue recently. He alleged that Congress government adopted double standards in giving permission to Telangana party.

Anticipating trouble in and around Assembly, additional police forces deployed at the place took into preventive custody of some Telangana activists. The MLAs- J Krishna Rao, K Eshwar, S Satyanarayana, Venugopala Chary and K Harishwar Reddy and MLCs – Swamy Goud and P Sudhakar Reddy participated in the dharna. Meanwhile, Congress senior leader and MLA P Shankar Rao extended his solidarity with the agitating TRS MLAs and sat with them for some time.