VISAKHAPATNAM: The proposed two-day Praja Chaitanya Yatra of TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu in North Andhra districts of Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram was thwarted by YSRC activists and workers who stopped the convoy of Naidu outside the road leading to the airport.
With the activists of both the parties confronting each other and the convoy of Naidu getting stranded on the main road for nearly four-and-half hours, the police took the former Chief Minister into preventive custody and shifted him to the airport lounge.
From there, Naidu flew to Hyderabad as the police insisted that his tour would not be allowed citing law and order problems.
In a fit of rage, Naidu asked the police personnel to shoot him and conduct an “encounter” on the spot. The standoff, which started from the airport itself and then on the main road leading to massive traffic snarl, saw passengers to the airport face severe inconvenience and also commuters on the road face chock-a-block situation.
Naidu proposed to take up the yatra where he was scheduled to interact with farmers, who were opposing land pooling of their lands for allotting the same to the homeless poor, and then proceed to Vizianagaram.
Alleging that Naidu is against the development of North Andhra, the YSRC announced that Naidu should make his stand clear on the three capital proposal and then only he would be allowed to tour in the district.
Police denied permission to both the parties from staging any kind of protests but allowed only 50 TDP workers to the airport to welcome their leader.
Amid this, Naidu landed at the airport today afternoon and faced Go Back slogans by hundreds of protestors as soon as he came out of the airport. This led to a showdown between the two sides and after clearing the protestors after nearly half-an-hour, the convoy moved ahead. However, as it proceeded just 100 meters, it was brought to a grinding halt by the agitating YSRC workers who squatted in front of the vehicle.