Hyderabad, September 27: Infrastructure Minister Komatreddi Venkat Reddy and other leaders from the Telangana region were arrested along with their supporters for staging a sit-in dharna in front of Vidyut Soudha, the office of Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation at Khairtabad, here on Monday.
The Minister and other leaders were demanding that the state government supply seven hours of power to farmers in Telangana region. They were protesting against the power cuts imposed in the Telangana region. They alleged that the State Government was intentionally aggravating the power crisis in the region to sabotage the on-going Telangana agitation.
Besides the Minister, former minister Jupally Krishna Rao, Congress MPs Madhu Yaskhi Goud, P Rajaiah and Ponnam Prabhakar, TRS MLA K Taraka Rama Rao and other leaders took part in the dharna which lasted for several hours. Vehicular traffic on the entire stretch from Sanathnagar to Lakdi-ka-pul came to a standstill due to the dharna.
This is probably for the first time in Andhra Pradesh’s history that a cabinet minister has been arrested for participating in a protest against the State Government. However, it was not known whether the City Police took special permission from the Governor or the Chief Minister to arrest the Minister in view of the privileges cabinet ministers enjoy.
Earlier, the Telangana leaders had a meeting with Transco managing director Ajay Jain. Having failed to get an assurance on supply of power for seven hours, the leaders staged a sit-in dharna opposite the Transco office. Besides their supporters, the leaders were joined by hundreds of Transco employees who were already staging protests since Monday morning as part of Sakala Janula Samme.
The police officials tried in vain several times to convince the Minister and other leaders to wind-up the protest as it had led to a huge traffic jam on Khairtabad Roads. However, the latter refused to stop the protests. Finally, the Minister and other leaders were arrested and were shifted to Banjara Hills police station.
Earlier, Venkat Reddy also took part in the protest held at the State Secretariat. Talking to reporters, the Minister claimed that the power crisis in Telangana was artificial and the Chief Minister was trying to defame the SCCL employees and pro-Telangana groups by imposing power cuts. He also alleged that the government was discriminating with the Telangana farmers in imposing the power cuts.
The Minister also slammed the Chief Minister for serving show cause notices on the striking employees without even consulting his cabinet colleagues. Accusing Kiran Kumar Reddy of trying to provoke the Telangana sentiments by taking unilateral decisions, he warned of dire consequences if the same attitude continues.
——-Agencies