Two more MLAs - Chintalapudi MLA Maddala Rajesh Kumar and Chittoor MLA C K Babu - started fasts to death for a United AP (Samaikyandhra) on a day that marked intensifying agitations across the state.
Characterizing the seeping in of the anti-Telangana emotion deep into the state, villages are turning to protest in an increasingly strident way, intensifying the agitation that has centered around the urban areas so far.
The urban areas continue to fume. Roja visited Kadapa to express solidarity with fasting leaders there, and riled against the media for not portraying the Samaikyandhra movement in a favaourable light, and the state government for trying to suppress it. Visakhapatnam was marked by relay fasts, and in neighbouring Vijainagaram, people wore masks of the fasting leaders to express support.
Tirupati saw journalists burn KCR effigies, Eluru had car rallies and Nellore had rickshaw rallied in addition to effigy-burning, and the TDP’s bus trips in Rayalaseema and Andhra continued with its leaders stopping to sympathize with all their fasting brethren. In one of the few soothing statements of the day, Killi Krupaneni, MP of Srikakulam, assured people that she had it directly from Union Home Minister Chidambaram that there would be a statement from the Union government in 2 days about AP.
filed in:United AP Movement, Telangana Agitation Violence, Roja