Release Manda Krishna Madiga Or Face Revolt: Congress

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy today strongly condemned the arrest of MRPS chief Manda Krishna Madiga, and called it illegal.

Reddy slammed Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao for suppressing the agitation by the MRPS leader seeking categorisation of the Scheduled Castes. He pointed out that when an MRPS activist Bharathi died during a protest at the Hyderabad Collectorate on November 6, 2017, the CM had made a statement in the Assembly promising that he would take an all-party delegation to Delhi. Even after two months, however, KCR had done nothing to resolve the issue, he said - instead, Krishna Madiga had been arrested twice to suppress the agitation.

Reddy said that the arrest of Madiga and other MPRS activists was an open violation of the fundamental right of freedom of speech. He said that everyone had a right to protest in a democratic manner, and by simply refusing to permit any kind of agitation by the MRPS, the TRS government was working against the spirit of democracy.

He demanded that the state government immediately release Madiga and other MPRS activists, and withdraw all the cases registered against them. He also demanded that the Chief Minister take an all-party delegation to Delhi to find a solution to the SC categorisation issue.

Separately, Congress MLA S A Sampath Kumar, too, demanded that the state government release Madiga immediately from his "illegal detention". Speaking to the media along with Telangana TDP senior leader Motkupally Narasimhulu and Telangana Inti Party leader and former MLA Yennam Srinivas Reddy at the Assembly media point, Sampath alleged that the TRS government was "anti-dalit", and was behaving vengefully towards the MRPS leader who it dumped in jail undemocratically.

Kumar said that the Madigas had been agitating for the categorization of the SC reservations for the last two-and-a-half decades. The TRS government had passed a resolution on the issue in the Assembly and forwarded it to the Centre, and thereafter just washed its hands off the issue, he lamented. He demanded that it mount serious and sustained pressure on the Centre over the SC categorization issue, and that failure to do so would result in the Madiga community revolting.

Describing Madiga's imprisonment as the imprisonment of the entire Madiga community, Narsimhulu alleged that KCR was suppressing Madigas in the State. He demanded that KCR spell his stand on the issue of the categorisation of the SC reservations. He warned that the government would fall if the Chief Minister did not change his attitude. He also warned that the state government alone would be held responsible if anything happened to Madiga in the Chanchalguda jail.