Komatireddi Arrested For Protest

Infrastructure Minister Komatireddi Venkat Reddy and other leaders from the Telangana region, along with their supporters, were arrested for staging a sit-in dharna in front of Vidyut Soudha, the office of Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation at Khairtabad, on Monday.

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 is not known whether the City Police took special permission from the Governor or the Chief Minister to arrest the minister, considering the privileges that cabinet ministers generally enjoy.

The minister and other leaders were demanding that the state government supply power for 7 hours to farmers in the Telangana region. This was a protest against the power cuts imposed in the Telangana region.

The protestors alleged that the state government was intentionally aggravating the power crisis in the region to sabotage the ongoing 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.

Earlier, the Telangana leaders had a meeting with Transco managing director Ajay Jain. Having failed to get an assurance on the 7-hour power supply, 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 the ongoing 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 in Khairatabad.

However, the latter refused to stop the protests. Finally, the minister and other leaders were arrested and were shifted to the Banjara Hills police station.

Earlier, Komatireddi 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 is artificial and that the Chief Minister was trying to defame SCCL employees and pro-Telangana groups by imposing power cuts.

He also alleged that the government was discriminating against Telangana farmers in imposing the power cuts.

The minister also slammed the Chief Minister for serving show-cause notices to the on-strike employees "without even consulting his cabinet colleagues". (INN)