Traffic on the busy roads around Secretariat went berserk on Monday, as members of the Lambadi Hakkula Porata Samithi (LHPS) picketed the Secretariat on Monday, demanding that the government recognize the 500 thandas which the members of the community inhabit as 'Gram Panchayat'.
The protestors raised slogans against the State government, and demanded that it fulfil the promise it made way back in the 2004 elections.
The security personnel at the Secretariat had some tense moments when the protestors tried to storm the premises. They managed to control the situation by dispersing the protestors through a lathi-charge. Some of the protestors who were brave enough to remain rooted at the spot were bundled off into police vehicles to be taken to the nearby police stations.
Earlier, talking to the media, LHPS state president B Sanjeev Naik took exception to what he called the lethargy of the government over the issue. He accused the government of being discriminatory against the Lambadi community.
"It has been 6 years since a survey by district Collectors had been carried out, which had revealed 2,836 villages to be inhabited by the Lambadis, following an order by former chief minister, the late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, to identify the 'Thandas'. The Collectors who had identified these thandas recommended that the government should recognise them as Gram Panchayats," Naik said.
The LHPS leader rued that despite several memorandum and requests to the state government to look into this matter, the issue was put in cold storage. He demanded that the government to issue a GO in this connection soon.