Will Farmers' Stir Jeopardise KCR's Halia Meeting?

The much-talked-about meeting that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had planned to hold in Nalgonda's Halia town on April 14, part of the TRS' election campaign for the upcoming Nagarjuna Sagar by-election, seems to have run into a bit of trouble.

Two petitions were filed against the high-profile meeting today. While one was filed at the Telangana High Court, the other was a complaint made to the Election Commission of India (EC).

Two NGOs, Yuga Tulasi and Gow Sena Foundation, submitted a petition to the EC pointing out that permission for the massive gathering should not be given as it could worsen the already-grave pandemic situation in Telangana.

Meanwhile, a group of local farmers from Halia filed a petition in the state's apex court claiming that the meeting was being held in their fields without their permission.

They claimed that the leaders of the TRS were trying to level their (the farmers') fields for the meeting, and had ignored any pleas not to do so. Further, they pointed out that a gathering of one lakh people was a risk to public health in the midst of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The petitioners appealed to the court to cancel the meeting.

While the EC's response on the NGOs' petition is still awaited, the high court has clearly declined to hear the petition filed by the farmers. It has instead issued orders for the transfer of the case.

There was no way that the hearing could have been conducted before the meeting since April 13 is a holiday. The HC's decision has likely left the pink party very happy.