The farmers’ agitation in protest against the shifting of the Capital from Amaravati turned violent on the 21st day on Tuesday. Stepping up their pressure on the Government, about 5,000 people took out a rally on the National Highway 9 at Chinna Kakani and squatted on the road.
Tension built up in the area when the agitators attacked the car in which Macherla MLA Pennelli Ramakrishna Reddy was travelling. The car was damaged and the MLA’s gunmen were injured in the attack. The protesters used stones and sticks to carry out the in what appeared to be a well-planned attack. The protesters surrounded the MLA’s car coming from the service road on which the car was moving.
A huge traffic jam was caused on either side of the highway due to the incident.
Later, addressing a Press conference, Ramakrishna Reddy said that TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu had engineered the attack and that this kind of tactics would not work. “If the farmers have any grouse, they should stage peaceful protests in a democratic manner and come for talks with the Chief Minister,” he said.
Naidu was using the goondas to intimidate people only to protect his lands in Amaravati, Ramakrishna Reddy said and challenged him to come for a direct fight anywhere in the State. “I am the son of Palnandu. You will never succeed in threatening me,” he challenged Naidu.
The police have begun the exercise of identifying the people who attacked the Macherla MLA. They are said to be using drones and CC TV cams to bring the culprits to book.
Earlier in the day, the police kept TDP leaders under house arrest in Guntur and Krishna districts. TDP MP Kesineni Nani and former MLA Bonda Umamaheswa Rao were not allowed to come out of their houses. In Guntur, TDP MP Galla Jayadev was kept under house arrest.
Former ministers Nara Lokesh and Kollu Ravindra were arrested in Vijayawada. Lokesh expressed solidarity with Vijayawada-East MLA Gadde Rammohan whose 24-hour hunger-strike in protest against the shifting of the Capital from Amaravati ended at 11 a.m. Lokesh entered into an argument with the police asking them on what grounds they were attacking him.
TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu condemned the house of TDP leaders and called the action undemocratic. He said it showed how autocratically the State government was acting against the Opposition leaders who expressing solidarity with the agitating farmers.