Hyderabad, March 11: Congress MPs K. Keshava Rao and Madhu Yaski were today attacked by pro-Telangana protesters who rained shoes and bottles on their vehicle.
Rao, a member of the Congress Working Committee and the party’s Bengal minder until early last week, and Yaski were targeted for failing to quit as parliamentarians to protest the failure of the Centre and Andhra Pradesh’s Congress government to fulfil the statehood demand.
The two leaders had arrived to join a protest, Million Marchers, this afternoon. The mobs, mostly TRS workers and Osmania University students, first heckled and booed the MPs. While Yaski was whisked away in a police vehicle, Rao tried to play to the gallery by climbing on the bonnet of his Tata Safari but was virtually dragged down. The agitators then hurled shoe-and-bottle missiles that smashed the vehicle’s windscreen.
Yaski later tried to make common cause with the protesters, saying he was ready to resign any time if that helped the Telangana cause, while trying to blame his party for the protesters’ fury. “The attack shows their anger at the Congress and not me personally,” he said.
The agitators damaged statues of coastal Andhra icons, including that of Pingali Venkaiah who is widely revered as the designer of the national flag. Some photo journalists trying to capture the mayhem at Tank Bund Road, the protest venue, were attacked and their cameras smashed.
At Osmania University, a student tried to immolate himself and another drank pesticide after they were stopped from leaving the campus to join the protests, police said. Both are critical.
-Agencies