VIJAYAWADA: In all likelihood, fasting kapu leader Mudragada Padmanabham might call of his hunger strike later in the day with Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu more or less agreeing to his demands in a prelude to inclusion of kapus among the BCs.
Tension eased to some extent at Padmanabham's residence in Kirlampudi in East Godavari district this morning itself with indications that he might end his fast. The development occurred immediately after TDP legislators - Boddu Bhaskara Rama Rao and Thota Thrimurhtulu - conferring with the fasting leader till late in the night persuading him to call off his hunger strike.
In fact, they made a proposal to him that he could have his nominee on the board of the AP Kapu Development and Welfare Corporation besides the corporation clearing all the applications that come before it for financial assistance till the end of this financial year regardless of how much the financial burden would work out to be.
The two member delegation also promised that the government would consider his other demand for shortening the time given for the KL Manjunath Commission to complete its study of socio-economic conditions of the kapus to include them among the Backward Classes.
This morning both Rama Rao and Thrimurthulu along with AP TDP president Kala Venkata Rao and Minister K Atchan Naidu are closeted with him once again and are persuading him to call off his hunger strike. "Padmanabham is most likely to call off his hunger strike today," Bhaskara Rama Rao said before he resumed talks with him along with others this morning.
Meanwhile, the police continue to prevent anyone reaching Kirlampudi, fearing that they might foment passions. All the leaders who are arriving in Rajamahendravaram are being asked to stay put there and not to go to Kirlampudi. When film director Dasari Narayana Rao arrived in the morning, the police asked him stay in hotel relax. Later Narayana Rao came down heavily on police for stopping him to go to Kirlampudi asking him on grounds could they stop him from going to Kirlampudi. Even during British rule, this kind of restrictions were never seen," he said.