Legislators of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), themain opposition party in Andhra Pradesh assembly, Tuesday continued theirprotest against the shortage of electricity.
The legislators, who were arrested by the police late Mondaynight after they refused to leave the Chief Minister's Office in the statesecretariat, sat on protest Tuesday in the assembly premises.
The opposition legislators demanded that the Congressgovernment take immediate steps to solve the problem of electricity shortageand ensure seven-hour supply to the farm sector.
Raising anti-government slogans, the TDP legislators stageda sit-in at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. The security staff removed the mediapersons accompanying the protesting legislators. This evoked a strong reactionfrom the TDP.
To protest the police attitude, one of the legislators, N.Rajkumari, climbed on top of the building, making for some anxious moments forassembly officials.
Following repeated and fervent appeals by the officials, sheended her protest.
TDP leader E. Dayakar Rao alleged that the government wasinsensitive to the problems faced by farmers. He said the farmers were gettingelectricity supply not even for three hours a day, causing them huge losses.
The opposition party demanded that the governmentimmediately call an assembly session to discuss the severe power crisis in thestate.
The legislators alleged that when they called on him at hisoffice Monday evening, Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy failed to offer theman assurance that their concerns would be addressed.
Even after the chief minister left his office, as many as 40TDP legislators remained in the meeting hall till midnight.
The police arrested them after they refused to leave thesecretariat.
The police cut off electricity supply to the building,stopped food from being taken inside, and evicted media persons.
When the protest continued despite these moves, the policeentered the building to arrest the legislators.
The chief minister, meanwhile, has said that his governmentis doing everything possible to address the power shortage.
He said the gap between demand and supply was huge and thegovernment was buying 50 million units from outside the state everyday tonarrow the gap.
The government has already imposed three- to six-hour powercuts in cities and towns while in rural areas power during day time is suppliedonly to the farm sector.