HYDERABAD: The Praja Railu of the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) rolled out for a three-day tour in the State to promote the party symbol — the locomotive — from Secunderabad station with much fanfare. It carried young filmstars — party president Chiranjeevi’s son Ramcharan Tej and party general secretary Allu Aravind’s son Allu Arjun — who were accompanied by Chiranjeevi’s elder daughter Susmitha and his brother Nagendrababu’s son Varun.
The special train was flagged off by Chiranjeevi in the morning.
Though the crowd at the Secunderabad station was moderate, it swelled as the train moved out into the rural areas.
At Kazipet station, a few hundreds of youth cheered the two filmstars as the latter waved hands to the former and displayed placards which called for a change.
A huge crowd met the glamorous siblings at Warangal station. However, fans were unable to listen to the voices of their heroes as public address system was not arranged on the train.
The party leaders said as the train was handed over to them late in the night, they could not arrange the public address system. But it would be arranged the next day, they promised.
Meanwhile, interacting with the media on board the train, Allu Arjun and Ramcharan Tej said they were not going to critisise any party during the train campaign. Their endeavour was to popularise the party symbol among the masses, they said.
Ramcharan Tej said ‘cycle’, the symbol of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and ‘hand’ the symbol of the Congress, in their true form served only one person, whereas the train served thousands at a time. Admitting that he felt bad when his father was being criticised, he said he had now got used to it.
Allu Arjun said the youth were very enthusiastic to vote for Chiranjeevi as they wanted a change in the present political system.
After flagging off the train at Secunderabad station, Chiranjeevi said the train was a symbol of social justice which was his party’s main policy.
TRAIN WINDOWS SMASHED: At Errupalem station of Khammam district, fans banged the windows of the train and reportedly broke the windows of a compartment.
However, the station master said no window had been broken. Some fans boarded the train at Madhira station and at Errupalem they pulled the chain, bringing the train to a halt. As the filmstars stayed back in the compartment, fans at the station banged on the windows.
Reportedly, some fans hurled stones, breaking the windows.
The fans even removed the vacuum pipe of the train causing a delay of 40 minutes. Finally, the heroes came out and pacified the crowds and the train lef t for i t s destination.