Chandrababu Naidu, others to spend night in police custody

HYDERABAD - Leader of Opposition N.Chandrababu Naidu and his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) legislators, who were arrested Monday during their protest in front of Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly building, will spend the night in police custody.

Naidu and other TDP leaders along with legislators of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) will remain in Goshamahal police station and walk to assembly Tuesday morning to lodge their protests on the “indifference” of the Congress government towards the problems faced by farmers.

The political leaders, who were arrested along with leaders of some farmers’ organisations, decided not to leave the police station till Tuesday morning.

Naidu was arrested after he staged a sit-in on the road in front of the assembly building for three hours to protest the arrest of legislators and farmers’ leaders.

Earlier, TDP leaders claimed that Naidu had a narrow escape when a police vehicle carrying the arrested legislators almost ran over him. The former chief minister was trying to stop the vehicle but the driver did not apply the brakes and Naidu’s security guards pulled him back in the nick of time.

“Is this the way you treat a former chief minister? Is it democracy or what?” an angry Naidu asked police officers when they tried to persuade him to end his protest.

It all started when a group of leaders of some farmers’ organisations reached the assembly building to submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy, demanding relief for farmers whose crops were damaged in recent unseasonal heavy rains.

When security personnel did not allow them inside, they sat on the road to lodge their protest.

Meanwhile, legislators of the TDP, the CPI and the CPI-M came out of the assembly and joined the farmers’ protest. Police then bodily lifted the legislators and farmers’ leaders and took them to a waiting vehicle.

On hearing about the arrests, Naidu too came out of the assembly and tried to stop the police vehicle.

The TDP chief alleged that the government was not only running away from a debate on the farmers’ issues in the assembly but was also adopting “high-handed” attitude towards opposition legislators and farmers.

The opposition parties are demanding the government compensate farmers who suffered huge crop loss due the recent heavy rains.