BHUPALPALLY: If it was not for the buffaloes, and the booking of a police case, it would have been a theatre of the absurd.
On Thursday evening, a farmer stormed into Bhupalpally MLA Gandra Satyanarayana Rao’s camp office, flanked by 15 of his most loyal supporters: his buffaloes.
The farmer, K Odelu, owns a modest 15 guntas of land in Manjurunagar, located next to the MLA’s very important camp office. Also in the neighbourhood: a government primary school. Odelu had constructed a shed on his land to house his cattle, because buffaloes require no permission to graze—just a bit of grass and the right to exist.
On Thursday morning, municipal authorities arrived with all the delicacy of a bulldozer and flattened the shed without informing the owner. Odelu and his wife protested, showing land documents, making pleas and doing everything short of forming a human chain. Their efforts were rewarded with silence.
So they did what politicians seldom expect: the unthinkable.
Hooves clattering and tails swishing, the cattle made their grand entrance into the MLA’s camp office. The couple followed, demanding to know why the shed on their land was reduced to rubble.
The answer was, apparently, in the interest of “development.” The MLA, it seems, had grand plans to lay a road to the nearby government school. And naturally, that required evicting cattle from privately owned land. When asked if he had, in fact, ordered the demolition, the MLA resorted to the age-old political tactic of stalling.
But Odelu was not in the mood for civilised silence. “We will not leave until we get justice,” the couple insisted, as buffaloes casually loitered near the MLA’s desk, perhaps contemplating their future.
The brief bovine occupation ended when Bhupalpally Inspector D Naresh Kumar arrived with his staff. The police hustled the protesting couple to the station and escorted the buffaloes out. Odelu was booked for trespass and nuisance, a not too surprising twist given the fact that he is a common man.
Speaking to TNIE, CI Naresh Kumar confirmed, “A trespass and nuisance case has been registered against Odelu.” The fact remains that no one, except Odelu and his wife, is bothered that private property was demolished without notice.