VIJAYAWADA: Tension prevailed at Nidamanuru in Vijayawada Rural mandal on Thursday morning when YSR Congress Party cadre and police had a face off after the car of Nidamanuru sarpanch D Koteswara Rao was set ablaze by some unidentified miscreants in the small hours of the day.
The incident happened a day after the sarpanch joined the YSRCP after quitting Telugu Desam. Holding TDP workers responsible for the arson, a large number of YSRCP activists gathered at the house of Koteswara Rao and tried to take out a rally with the gutted car to Vijayawada Police Commissionerate. However, police who were deployed in large numbers at the place to thwart any untoward incident, prevented them by stating that the gutted car was the evidence in the case of arson.
Speaking to mediapersons, Koteswara Rao said he suspected the hand of the rival party leaders in the incident. “I had been with the TDP for three and half years. Of late, I was feeling suffocated as there was no freedom in the party. All the decisions, including those pertaining to my own village, are being taken by the TDP leadership. Hence, I quit the TDP and joined YSRCP,” he said.
According to Koteswara Rao, he joined the YSRCP in the presence of MLA RK Roja at around 8 pm, returned home and slept at 10:30 pm. He woke up when the doorbell started ringing non-stop. It was 1 am and he asked his father to answer it.
“My father told me that the car was set ablaze. I was shocked and did not venture out of the house out of fear. Why should it happen to me. There are several others who left the TDP to join other parties and none of them had faced any threat,” he said.
Later in the day, demanding action against arsonists, YSR Congress Party activists, led by former minister Kolusu Parthasarathy, staged a protest at the Police Commissionerate.
When they tried to meet the Police Commissioner en masse, they were stopped. Taking exception to it, the protestors staged a sit-in and when the Police Commissioner’s vehicle came out of the commissionerate, they tried to obstruct it.
Police Commissioner D Gautam Sawang got down from the vehicle and spoke to the agitators. He told them that it was not proper to obstruct the vehicular traffic. “Our doors are always open to the aggrieved. But let it be in a proper way,” the Police Commissioner said.
Speaking to the media, Parthasarathy said it only showed the dictatorial ways of the Telugu Desam Government. “Even officials are refusing to hear us. Where will people get justice,” the former minister questioned.