The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday used everything in its power to thwart the ‘Chalo Assembly’ rally taken out by the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC), with the result that protesters failed in their primary objective — to gatecrash the Assembly. But the fact that hundreds of them managed to make their presence felt in the city, if not the Assembly, despite precautionary arrests and a massive security build up, did bring smiles to their faces and sound bytes of a “moral victory.”
The police turned Hyderabad into an impregnable fortress, sealing off all roads and flyovers leading to the Assembly. About 15,000 policemen, including 25 platoons of Central forces, began patrolling the city from the wee hours and picked up all the main leaders of the TJAC, the separatist Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), BJP and others as soon as they hit the streets.
In fact, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and Speaker N Manohar arrived at the Assembly by 6 am to personally monitor security arrangements.
As the day progressed, it became increasingly clear that police had with an iron hand thwarted the T-protest. No wonder TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao called for a Telangana bandh on Saturday. “The bandh is to protest the high-handedness of the police,” he said in a statement.
The CM was happy after a congratulatory call from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Congress’ Andhra incharge Ghulam Nabi Azad for ensuring there was no breakdown of law and order. TJAC chairman Prof M Kodandaram, on the other hand, termed the protest a moral victory for T-activists.