ELURU: Yet again, TDP leader and former government whip Chintamaneni Prabhakar hit the headlines for all wrong reasons. On Friday, West Godavari district police registered a case against him for allegedly insulting Dalits based on the complaint filed by villagers of Pinakamidi of Pedavegi Mandal.
On Thursday, one C Josef of Pinakamidi was bringing sand from Tammileru for his house construction and he was obstructed by Chintamaneni and his men. D Ramaiah and Sandeep Kumar of the village, who came to know about it, rushed to the spot, but they too were detained by the TDP leader and his men.
The trio was reportedly insulted in the name of their caste and roughed up by the henchmen of Chintamaneni. Later, Josef lodged a complaint with Pedavegi police and a case was registered under the SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Section 341 (wrongful restraint), 506 (criminal intimidation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 148 read with 149 (unlawful assembly) of the IPC against Chintamaneni G Kishore, and others.
Meanwhile, a group of Dalits from Pinakamidi and other parts of Pedavegi mandal staged a protest at the fire station centre in Eluru demanding arrest of the former Denduluru MLA. Chintamaneni, who was put under house arrest on Friday when he tried to participate in the protest staged by the TDP against the sand shortage, described the case as a conspiracy of his rivals.
He said intentionally false cases were being foisted against him by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, which is wary of the TDP agitations against the misrule in the State. He said he was not afraid of such cases, but at the same time maintained that he had not insulted anybody in the name of caste. He said some of his staff are from the Dalit community.
Later in the day, police found that Prabhakar was absconding when they came to his house to arrest him.
This is not the first time Prabhakar courted controversy. The former MLA has 26 criminal cases pending against him since 2011, according to the election affidavit submitted by Prabhakar to the Election Commission in the 2019 elections.