Hundreds of workers of the Congress attempted to lay siege to the Telangana Secretariat, protesting against its proposed demolition.
Led by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President N Uttam Kumar Reddy, hundreds of workers of the Congress attempted to lay siege to the Telangana Secretariat on Thursday, protesting the proposed demolition of the existing Secretariat buildings to facilitate the construction of new blocks.
Reddy along with thousands of senior Congress leaders and workers reached the Secretariat at around 11 am. Fearing that the Congress workers might storm the building, the police barricaded the main entrance and sealed all other entry gates, after which the Congress workers staged a sit-in protest for over an hour and raised slogans against the TRS government and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
Speaking to the media during the protest, Reddy said that at a time when welfare schemes were not being implemented due to lack of funds, the demolition and reconstruction of the Secretariat comes as a shocker. KCR would not hesitate to waste hundreds of crores of rupees from the treasury to construct a new Secretariat just to satisfy his beliefs.
Most of the blocks in the Secretariat were constructed during the recent past and were totally fit for accommodation, but the CM wanted to demolish for silly reasons, Reddy said, adding that the State government should instead prioritize the clearance of crop loans, fee reimbursement, Aarogyasri and other welfare schemes.
The Advocate General cited fire safety norms as the reason for demolishing the government building, before the High Court in a response to a PIL filed by a Congress member, which was completely false, he alleged.
The TPCC chief said that 16 Chief Ministers and their Cabinet Ministers, including AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, operated from the same premises in the past and completed their tenures successfully. The Centre would not allow a VVIP to function from an office which was marked a potential fire hazard, he said.
"The TRS government lied to the Court to justify this insane decision," he claimed.
Reddy said that the Congress was fighting the case in the High Court at present and would also intensify agitations across the State to force stop the demolition.
Senior leaders including Leader Of Opposition in the Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir, MLAs D K Aruna, G Chinna Reddy, Rammohan Reddy, Sampath Kumar and Vamshi Chand Reddy, MLC Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy, former Union Ministers Sarve Satyanarayana and Balram Naik, former Ministers P Sabitha Indra Reddy and Danam Nagender, ex-MPs M Anjan Kumar Yadav and Mallu Ravi, TPCC treasurer Gudur Narayan Reddy, Youth Congress President Anil Kumar Yadav, NSUI President B Venkat and Mahila Congress President N Sharada also sat in the agitation.
The protest turned into a scuffle and the city police had to whisk the Congress leaders, including some MLAs, away to police stations.
Later, the cops arrested all Congress workers and leaders involved in the protests, including Uttam Kumar Reddy, and shifted them to Gandhi Nagar, Abids and Nampally PSs. They were released later on a personal bail bond.
Speaking to the media after his release, Reddy condemned the "high handedness" of the police.