Naidu stages dharna at police station

TDP MLAs evicted from CM Office and held in custody

Hyderabad: In a day of high political drama, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu gave jitters to police at Saifabad police station, where his party MLAs were taken to following their protest at Secretariat on Thursday.

About 10 MLAs including G Muddukrishnama Naidu, B Gopalakrishna Reddy and D Umamaheswara Rao staged dharna in front of the Chief Minister’s Office demanding that the government provide immediate relief to the farmers and the poor who lost their livelihoods in the flood-ravaged areas of the State.

The CMO being a high security zone, the police officials asked the MLAs not to resort to any agitation but as they refused to oblige, the police took all MLAs into preventive custody and shifted them to Saifabad police station.

Angered over the arrest of his party MLAs, Naidu, accompanied by party senior leaders including T Srinivas Yadav, rushed to the police station. Protesting against the arrest, the TDP leader sat with arrested leaders at the station for some time. Later talking to media, Naidu lashed out at the government for neglecting the plight of the affected farmers and the people who were living in low-lying areas in the rain-affected districts. He said neither the Chief Minister nor his ministers were taking the issue seriously.

They had forgotten their duties and were watching the situation like mute spectators, he said. Naidu demanded that the State government immediately provide relief and disburse compensation to all farmers who lost their standing crops.